German Pavilion: The Latest Architecture and News

Since its inauguration this spring, Expo 2025 Osaka has captured global attention from multiple perspectives, demonstrating how architecture can function as a laboratory for exploring solutions to pressing challenges. After 55 years, Osaka is once again hosting the World Expo, with each installation organized around the sub-themes Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, and Connecting Lives. These pavilions take forms that express the identity and values of their region through distinctive architectural languages, forming the central axis of their design. Building on this foundation, some installations serve as laboratories for the future society, utilizing technology to enhance experiences both inside and outside the spaces, transforming the visit through light, sound, visuals, and movement as part of the technological innovation showcased at the event.

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Germany's contribution to the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 exposes visitors physically and psychologically to the future urban climate: a STRESSTEST that makes the need for immediate action palpable. The exhibition takes a clear stance: climate change is an unstoppable reality, and the measures taken so far are inadequate. It presents a scenario in which climate change manifests globally through rising temperatures, extreme weather, and sea level rise, with its effects directly felt at a local level: urban spaces suffering from heat stress. Curators Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G. Kiefer, and Daniele Santucci have designed an exhibition to highlight the impacts of global warming on urban life in an urgent call to action, emphasizing that this reality threatens urban social life, productivity, and the health and survival of citizens.

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Officially open since April 13 as part of Expo 2025 Osaka, the German Pavilion, designed by LAVA Architects. brings to life the theme of the circular economy. Previously unveiled under the title "Wa! Doitsu" (translated as "Wow! Germany"), the Pavilion explores concepts around circularity, showcasing the "terminological culmination of the sustainability discussion." Focusing on returning all consumable goods to the cycle of the economy, achieving zero waste, and minimizing resource consumption, the theme is visible throughout the entire design.

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Canada's Expo 67 stands as one of the most successful world expos ever held, setting records and leaving an enduring impact on Montreal's urban landscape. As part of Canada's 100 years celebrations, the event provided an opportunity for the city to showcase its cultural and technological achievements on a global platform. With over 50 million visitors in just six months, it shattered attendance records, including an astonishing 569,500 visitors in a single day. An unprecedented feat for a world fair at the time. Now, 58 years later, and with the Osaka Expo 2025 set to showcase how to design the future society for our lives, it is worth revisiting the legacy of Expo 67 and exploring the urban transformations it brought to Montreal.

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Over the past year, architecture exhibitions have significantly addressed pressing global issues such as climate change, resource scarcity, and social advocacy. According to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, architecture exhibitions can foster dynamic engagement with contemporary issues, serving as platforms for experimentation and critique. These events, such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Milan Design Week, and Concéntrico, serve as essential platforms for creatives to showcase and explore new ideas. Moreover, they have been instrumental in addressing the urgent challenges posed by the climate crisis by promoting sustainable practices.

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Videos

In light of the looming climate crisis and the pursuit of sustainability, the concepts of revival and reuse have emerged as crucial strategies in the quest for decarbonization in the architecture industry. These principles preach that creating new structures may be sustainable but encourage architects to minimize their ecological footprint by reactivating and recycling existing resources. This year specifically, innovative projects in line with these themes were displayed as part of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. This world-renowned event’s core purpose is to serve as a platform for architects, designers, and thinkers to collectively reimagine sustainability, decarbonization, resource conservation, and the industry's future.

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The German Pavilion Open for Maintenance / Wegen Umbau geöffnet at this years 18^th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia was curated by ARCH+ and Summacumfemmer Büro Juliane Greb. At its core, the exhibition addresses the resource problem and the material cycles of the biennale. Inside the pavilion is a functioning workshop dedicated to applying these concepts of care, repair, and maintenance to Venice onsite. In Venice, ArchDaily had the chance to speak with the co-curator Anh-Linh Ngo, where he discussed the different aspects of the German Pavilion.

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In 1929, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich design the German National Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The official reception for the exhibition was held there, presided over by King Alfonso XIII and the German authorities. From then on, the story is well known to everyone. A symbolic work of the Modern Movement, the Pavilion has been extensively studied and interpreted, and has inspired the work of several generations of architects.

Geometry of light, is a multimedia intervention by Luftwerk in collaboration with Iker Gil, exhibited in October, during the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, at the Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.

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It would be hard to associate zen philosophy with Mies van der Rohe, even harder to associate it with the German Pavilion in Barcelona. Nevertheless, the latest work by American artist Spencer Finch, Fifteen stones (Ryōan-ji), precisely establishes that connection with the iconic pavilion.

Spencer Finch was the latest artist invited to intervene the Fundació's pavilion. With the aim of "provok[ing] new looks and reflections through [his] intervention in the Pavilion, [he] enhanced it as a space for inspiration and experimentation for the most innovative artistic and architectural creation." Finch joined a prominent team of artists and architects, including SANAA, Jeff Wall, Ai Wei Wei, Enric Miralles, Andrés Jaque, and Anna & Eugeni Bach, among others.

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In 2018, Germany will be reunified for 28 years, the precise amount of time that the inner German border wall—which was active from between 1961 and 1989—stood between "East" and "West". With this in mind, the German State have announced "Unbuilding Walls" as the theme of the German Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Curated by GRAFT with Marianne Birthler, the exhibition will be designed to "respond to current debates on nations, protectionism, and division."