Following the selection process organised by the Institut français, Ms Rachida DATI, Minister of Culture, and Mr. Stéphane SEJOURNÉ, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, announce that the project ' Living with/ Vivre avec » of the agency JAKOB+MACFARLANE was selected to represent France at the 19e International Architecture Exhibition – The Biennale di Venezia 2025.
The proposal “ Living with/ Vivre avec » of the agency JAKOB+MACFARLANE, formed by the architects Dominique JAKOB and Brendan MACFARLANE, associated with the agencies MARTIN DUPLANTIER ARCHITECTES and ERIC DANIEL LACOMBE EDL ARCHITECTES, was selected after a competition for the French representation at the International Architecture Exhibition – the Biennale di Venezia 2025. The French Pavilion is implemented by theFrench Institute, operator of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture.
The competition for the design and implementation of the project that will represent France at this Biennale took place in two phases. During the first phase in December 2023, the selection committee, chaired by Bernard Desmoulin – Architect, elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institut de France, composed of five other qualified personalities and three institutional representatives, examined all fortyfive applications received to shortlist five multidisciplinary teams representing the values of the contemporary French architectural, urban and landscape scene.
The five teams admitted to compete for the second phase were invited to present a detailed project outside the walls thus renewing the traditional format of France’s participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale.
The jury selected the project ' Living with/ Vivre avec » which questions the ability of architecture to face the climate challenges, conflicts and instability of the world. For this, the project calls on three intelligences: nature intelligence, human intelligence and artificial intelligence.
«Vivre avec» proposes a spatial device that creates a porosity with its immediate environment and cohabits with the restoration site of the French Pavilion.
This light structure is built from reused elements and thought as an inclusive shelter, an «open laboratory» that becomes a space for exhibition, meetings and discussion, enriched with contributions from schools of French and international architectures.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SELECTED TEAM:
JAKOB+MACFARLANE ARCHITECTES, co-curator, is an architecture, urban planning, design and research agency founded in 1998 in Paris. Dominique JAKOB and Brendan MACFARLANE argue for an architecture driven by «a reflection on the potential, architectural, urban and creative of the construction of the new from the existing», and place the capacity for evolution at the center of their architectural approach.
MARTIN DUPLANTIER ARCHITECTES, MDA agency, founded in 2008, co-curator, represented by Martin DUPLANTIER, architect and urban planner, former president of the association AMO (Architecture and Owners). The agency brings together three disciplines, architecture, landscape and urbanism, and has also engaged in recent years to think about the reconstruction of Ukraine, after achieving with his team «an inventory of the destruction, the possibilities of rebuilding the identity elements of Ukrainian culture».
ERIC DANIEL-LACOMBE ARCHITECTES, created in 1989, co-curator, led by the architect Eric Daniel Lacombe, has developed a strong expertise on «living in vulnerable territories exposed to natural hazards». As a practitioner-designer and builder, he uses this expertise as a consultant to municipalities exposed to these risks, as for the design of resilient development of the Valleys in the context of the post-storm Alex in the Alps-Maritime where recent floods have caused human tragedies and material disasters.
International Architecture Exhibition – Biennale di Venezia 2025 :
La 19e International Architecture Exhibition will be held from May 24 to November 23, 2025. It will be curated by Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, who heads the MIT Senseable City Lab in Cambridge, one of the world’s leading research centres on the city and new technologies. The theme of the Biennale is not yet known.
The French Pavilion, within the Giardini, closed in 2025 for renovation :
The 2025 edition will be marked by the closure of the French Pavilion for major renovations carried out by the French Embassy in Italy, which will notably improve the reception of the public and the energy performance of the building. In line with its objectives for the ecological transition, the French Institute has engaged since 2022 the French Pavilion in Venice in a process of reducing its carbon footprint. The target is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 25% by 2026, and 40% by 2030, an average of -5% per year.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE SELECTION BOARD:
Chairman of the committee:
- Bernard Desmoulin – Architect, member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institut de France
Expert Panel Members, in alphabetical order:
- Reza Azard – Architect, Founding Partner and Joint Manager of Projectiles
- Ivan Blasi – Architect, Director of Awards and Programs at the Mies van der Rohe Foundation
- Ludivine Gragy – Landscape Architect
- Marine Kerboua – Architect, Associate Cooperator at Grand Huit
- Francis Rambert – Journalist, Architecture Critic, Director of the Department of Architectural Creation at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
Institutional members of the committee:
- Hélène Fernandez - Director, Assistant to the Director General of Heritage and Architecture, in charge of Architecture, Ministry of Culture
- Marie Buscail – Deputy Director of Culture and Media, Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs
- Eva Nguyen Binh – President of the Institut français