Editorial Note · 04 / 12

A laboratory of the future,
staged across a city of water —
decolonial, plural, urgent.

Curated by Lesley Lokko under the title The Laboratory of the Future, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition placed Africa and the African diaspora at the centre of the global discipline for the first time. Eighty-nine practitioners — half of them under 40 — staged installations across the Arsenale and Giardini that reframed climate, migration and identity as foundational architectural concerns rather than peripheral ones.

Federico Zignani photographed the exhibition over its opening week. The selection here registers the Biennale's deliberate spatial plurality: low-lit textile installations, raw concrete back-of-house, the brick of the Corderie filtered through new screens.