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Cittadellarte opens the Biennale Architettura 2025 with an immersive installation dedicated to the Third Paradise: A new perspective on Earth's future
The 19th. International Architecture Exhibition, curated by Carlo Ratti and organised by la Biennale di Venezia, sees Fondazione Pistoletto in the spotlight with the installation ‘The Third Paradise Perspective’ - the result of Cittadellarte's workshop and in particular of the multidisciplinary collaboration between Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paolo Naldini, Michele Cerruti But, Tiziano Guardini, Luigi Ciuffreda and Giulia Giavatto - located in the first hall of the Corderie dell'Arsenale. Cittadellarte is also in the spotlight in the Intelligens CANON itinerary with ‘Lo Statodellarte’, selected as a concrete example of social transformation.
Fondazione Pistoletto will be among the key participants in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., curated by Carlo Ratti and organized by La Biennale di Venezia. The pre-opening will take place on May 8 and 9.
In this context, Cittadellarte symbolically opens the exhibition with The Third Paradise Perspective, an installation located in the first room of the Corderie dell’Arsenale, emphasizing the urgent need for a collective reflection on the planet’s future and the importance of solutions generated by human ingenuity. It is not only a symbolic starting point, but also a formula—the formula of creation expressed through the symbol of the Third Paradise—designed to address contemporary challenges, from the climate crisis to forced migrations caused by war and increasingly unbearable economic disparities. The Biennale’s entrance hall thus becomes the sign of a new narrative, one centered on the commitment of collective intelligence to generate ways of living and thriving in harmony with the life of the planet.
These ways of life—hundreds of projects, technologies, legal frameworks, and community-driven associations—are presented throughout the rest of the Biennale. Among them, the Curator and his team have selected several paradigmatic cases, best practices called Intelligens CANON: among these, with the project Lo Statodellarte, Fondazione Pistoletto has been recognized as a virtuous model for the activation of collective intelligence.
The Third Paradise opens the Biennale: a passage toward a possible future
Visitors to the Biennale are welcomed into a powerful and immersive environment: a flooded room, with water reaching 70 cm—the projected sea level in Venice by 2100—traversed by a pathway in the shape of the Third Paradise. This symbol, introduced by Michelangelo Pistoletto in 2003, becomes both a physical and conceptual gateway into the exhibition, inviting reflection on collective responsibility and the possibility of building new solutions together. The choice to begin the exhibition with this symbol is no coincidence: the first room serves as a point of departure, a space where climate change becomes visible and central to reflections on the future. Cittadellarte’s vision positions itself in the Biennale not only as a tool of hope, but as a concrete proposal for connecting natural and artificial intelligence—a symbol of synergy capable of addressing global challenges.
In a near-dystopian setting that recreates the future climate conditions projected for Venice (the installation Terms and Conditions – by Transsolar, Bilge Kobas, Daniel A. Barber, Sonia Seneviratne, based on scientific research: Pierini, L., Hauser, M., Bresch, D. N., and Seneviratne, S. I., 2025: Venice in a Changing Climate: Literature Review. ETH Zurich), the Third Paradise emerges as the only source of light and hope, guiding visitors—both literally and symbolically—toward the heart of the Biennale and a regenerative vision of tomorrow.
The project The Third Paradise Perspective is the result of Cittadellarte’s laboratory and in particular of the multidisciplinary collaboration between Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paolo Naldini, Michele Cerruti But, Tiziano Guardini, Luigi Ciuffreda, and Giulia Giavatto, with the support of Lavazza Group (among the official sponsors of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025), Pomilio Blumm, the Circle of the Custodians of Cittadellarte, Blue & Green S.r.l., and Artemide.
Intelligens CANON: Lo Statodellarte among the Virtuous Models of the Future
Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte will be among the key participants in the Intelligens CANON section curated by Carlo Ratti. This “exhibition within the exhibition” showcases emblematic and innovative projects, bringing together cross-disciplinary initiatives that serve as virtuous models for contemporary architecture. These models demonstrate how intelligence can be actively applied to address global challenges.
Within this Canon, Lo Statodellarte by Cittadellarte has been selected as a concrete example of social transformation. The project is rooted in Demopraxia, a form of civic-political organization that values communities of practice as active agents of change. Like a collective work in constant evolution, it charts the future by combining freedom and responsibility.
Cittadellarte promotes responsible co-creation to address the world’s pressing issues, with initiatives ranging from an Academy offering three-year programs in Public Art and Sustainable Fashion, to a platform of artist and activist residencies, and a global network of ambassadors engaged in social innovation projects.
The Biennale embraces the concept of “rebuilding,” a notion made tangible through the Foundation’s proposal. For the past thirty years, Cittadellarte has worked to transform territories through projects in governance and innovative urban planning, becoming a benchmark in the design of solutions that merge natural and artificial intelligence. With Lo Statodellarte, Cittadellarte reaffirms the importance of human intelligence in synergy with both natural and technological intelligence to face the challenges of the future.
Lo Statodellarte has been developed by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paolo Naldini, Michele Cerruti But, Luca Bergamo, Nazarena Lanza, Alessandro Mondino, Andrea Redaelli, Ilaria Bernardi, and Niccolò Abriani.
Voices
“Only collective intelligence can save us,” stated Paolo Naldini. “Collective intelligence operates according to the trinamic formula: 1 and 1 makes 3. It’s a new perspective: no longer a straight line projected forward, but a circular space where we care for ourselves and others, fostering regeneration and shared prosperity. A space that connects with other spaces, generating synapses in the social, natural, and artificial brain of the planet.”
“Cittadellarte opens the Venice Architecture Biennale. It is the first room of the Corderie, the room of intentions and manifestos, where the curator positions his vision. In this case, Carlo Ratti suggests that the entire exhibition,” emphasized Michele Cerruti But, “should begin here — from a focused gaze on the present and future, on radical climate conditions, and on the global transformations of human demographics. But also from a major proposition: to face these conditions by moving through the space of creation, inviting a new balance and a different model of coexistence. That proposition is Cittadellarte — and it is the gateway to the Biennale. In an exhibition where architecture is a discipline calling upon others to address the challenges of the world, Cittadellarte is also chosen as an element of a new Canon: a model that lights the way through its practices of shared creation, democratic rethinking, artistic engagement, and responsible societal transformation.”
“Will we be ready to cross the Third Paradise? A question we’ve asked ourselves many times. It requires action,” say Tiziano Guardini and Luigi Ciuffreda of Guardini Ciuffreda Studio, “towards an evolved vision of our role as inhabitants of this extraordinary and fragile architecture called Earth. Each of us is called, in this moment, to connect with one another and generate an evolved change, and this installation enables the first steps toward that awareness. We thank Maestro Michelangelo Pistoletto for having traced the path and, in this case, for helping make it concrete and shareable.”
