Agency for better living: Austrian Contribution to the 19th International Architecture Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia 2025, Venice
May 10 – November 23, 2025

Extremely powerful displacement mechanisms driven by the simultaneous combination of huge flows of capital and the far-reaching transformation of our society are putting pressure on housing provision all around the globe. The fundamental right to a home is gaining a new political dimension. The curators Sabine Pollak, Michael Obrist, and Lorenzo Romito are opening the Agency for Better Living in the Austrian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2025.

Taking the cities of Vienna and Rome as their starting points, they are comparing the top-down model of social housing in Vienna with the bottom-up practices of self-organization pursued by civil society in Rome. The curators are asking what a nationally or municipally organized system and an informal activist approach can learn from one another. In this way, the Austrian Pavilion will become a place for sharing knowledge about how we can create a better living for all.

Vienna and Rome
Vienna has long regarded housing as not only a purely functional but also a socio-emancipatory issue. The starting point of the Austrian Biennale contribution is this global interest in the Austrian model. It relates two parallel “mythical” narratives with two contrasting approaches to how we would like to live together in future: the history of the successful national or municipally organized top-down model, illustrated with the help of a century of social housing design in Vienna; and the history of informal housing, of the bottom-up model that makes use of unfinished or abandoned buildings and former elements of infrastructure. This is illustrated by an example from the Biennale’s host country of Italy, then City of Rome, an urban laboratory in which reactions to today’s major displacements take the shape of creative interventions and civil resistance.

The Austrian Pavilion becomes an exhibition location and discussion space
The Austrian Pavilion will invite visitors to actively engage with a subject that affects us all. What defines good housing and a good living environment? What political framework do we need in order to create them? How can we design socially equitable, affordable housing? And what strategies lead to the best results? Alongside the exhibition, a discussion space will also be opened in the pavilion.

For the entire duration of the Biennale, the courtyard will become a user-friendly setting for a range of event formats that will address opportunities and strategies for better living. Here, visitors to the Biennale will meet activists, residents, experts, and all who are interested in improving housing and living conditions, in Vienna, Rome, or any other city. Twice a month on Fridays or Saturdays between June and October, presentations, talks, and workshops will address groups of subjects including the economy, migration, nature, climate, tourism, and many more. The participants will include actors from a wide range of specialist areas and visitors to the pavilion together with students from international universities and summer schools.

The courtyard plays a central role in the overall organization of the pavilion. It will become a place in which guests are motivated to rest awhile, to learn from each other, and to share ideas about better living. And some of the latest examples of and issues affecting housing in Vienna and Rome will be presented and addressed in various media in the symmetrically structured spaces to the left and right of the main entrance to the pavilion.

The processing of the issues, the idea of learning from two systems, and the discursive courtyard space all align with the overall theme of the Biennale: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. The precise goal is to incorporate a wide range of knowledge and experience, not just from Vienna and Rome but, rather, from as many as possible of the cities, institutions, and actors that are involved in the Biennale, in order to be able to develop future models for BETTER LIVING. ARCH+, the German magazine for architecture and urbanism which is well-known for defining the debate, is dedicating a special edition (with a print run of 10,000) to the Austrian Pavilion under the eponymous title Agency for Better Living. The magazine will appear in English and German.

more. www.labiennale2025.at