Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti has been appointed director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025.

The Venice Architecture Biennale directors announced today, 21 December, that Ratti will curate the 19th edition of the international architecture exposition.

Ratti is the founder of architecture and innovation studio Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He teaches both at MIT and at the Politecnico di Milano, and is an expert on urban planning, having authored over 750 publications including the recent Atlas of the Senseable City, published by Yale University Press.

Ratti's statement suggests technology focus

Ratti's work often explores the impact of technology on the world of architecture and urbanism.

In a statement, he suggested that the biennale will follow a similar direction.

"We architects like to think we are smart, but real intelligence is everywhere," Ratti said.

"The disembodied ingenuity of evolution, the growing power of computers, and the collective wisdom of the crowd. To face a burning world, architecture must harness all the intelligence around us."

"I am honoured and humbled to have the opportunity to curate the Biennale Architettura 2025," he added.

The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale will take place in the Italian city from 24 May from 23 November 2025.

Ratti will follow on from Scottish-Ghanaian architect, academic and novelist Lesley Lokko, whose biennale centred around Africa and the diaspora closed on 26 November.

His curatorial experience includes former roles as programme director for the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow and curator of the BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin.

Ratti was the chief curator of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen (UABB) in 2019, titled Urban Space + Technological Innovation, when he told Dezeen that "China is one of the best places for experimenting".

He was also co-curator of the Porto Design Biennale in 2021 and oversaw the urban vision for Manifesta 14 Prishtina, the European Nomadic Biennale, in 2022.

Ratti's notable architectural projects include MEET, a centre for digital culture in Milan, and the Italy Pavilion at the Dubai Expo in 2020.

The portrait of Carlo Ratti is by Sara Magni.