Lisbon, July 24, 2024 (Lusa) - The submission of applications to represent Portugal at the Venice Architecture Biennale will be open, and not by invitation only, from next year's edition, the country's Ministry of Culture announced on Wednesday.

As well as "changing the model for selecting the official Portuguese representation", "in order to guarantee broad participation", the ministry also announced, in a statement, a new location for the Portuguese Pavilion, which will no longer be at Palazzo Franchetti, on the Grand Canal in Venice, but at Fondaco Marcello, next to the Grand Canal.

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition - Venice Biennale takes place from 10 May to 23 November 2025.

The selection process for the Portuguese representation "will now include, in the first phase, a “call for expressions of interest”, allowing all those who wish to participate to submit applications. 

"Participation is open to architects and professionals with links to the disciplinary area of architecture," reads the statement.

In the last edition, as in previous ones, a limited competition was held, in which architects and architecture studios were invited to participate.

According to the Ministry of Culture, "applications may be individual or collective, and only one application per person may be submitted".

From the applications received, three will be selected, based on the "quality and consistency of the curatorial proposal, the response to the theme launched by the general curator of the Venice Biennale 2025 ["Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective"], the curriculum vitae of the candidate/s, and the appropriation of the pavilion space".

These three proposals will be chosen by a group "representative of various professional backgrounds and experiences in the disciplinary field of architecture: Ana Jara, Ana Vaz Milheiro, Diogo Passarinho, Inês Lobo and Luís Santiago Baptista".

The second phase of the competition will follow the rules established for the previous limited competition model.

The "Fertile Futures" project, curated by Andreia Garcia, from Architectural Affairs, represented Portugal at the Venice Architecture Biennale between 20 May and 26 November 2023, under the theme "The Laboratory of the Future".

For the next edition of the Architecture Biennale, Portugal's official pavilion will be housed in the Fondaco Marcello for three years.

"Once the lease agreement with the previous venue, Palazzo Franchetti, had come to an end, the Ministry of Culture decided it was necessary to find a new space that would guarantee better exhibition conditions," says the Ministry, adding that the new venue, with an area of 370 square metres and with “two large, open spaces on a single ground floor”, “is centrally located, next to the Grand Canal”.

Until the end of November, Palazzo Franchetti will host the Portuguese Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale, where the "Greenhouse" project by curators and artists Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges and Vânia Gala will be shown, The opening date of the competition for Portugal's representative at the Architecture Biennale and the respective budget allocation have not been announced.

The call for tenders for the Portuguese Official Representation at the 2025 Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition is one of the eight calls for tenders under the Project Support Programme set out in the DGArtes annual statement for 2024, released on March 28 while still under the management of the previous government.

The amounts and deadlines for opening these eight calls for tenders will be defined by the new government, which took office on 2 April.

As of today, these deadlines and amounts have not yet been revealed.

JRS/ARO // ARO.

Lusa