Serbia Presents "Unravelling: New Spaces" at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale • STILL IN BELGRADE

The 19th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, one of the world’s most prestigious cultural events, will officially open to the public on Saturday, May 10, and run until November 23, 2025. This year’s Biennale, curated by renowned architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, explores the theme “Intelligence. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”

With over 750 participants from around the globe—including architects, engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers, and climate experts—the exhibition invites reflection on architecture as a powerful tool of collective intelligence and innovation.

Serbia will take part in this significant international dialogue through the exhibition “Unravelling: New Spaces,” presented in the Serbian Pavilion and officially unveiled on May 8. Organized by the Museum of Applied Art on behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, and supported by the Association of Architects of Serbia, the project brings together a dynamic interdisciplinary team:

Davor Ereš, Jelena Mitrović, and Igor Pantić – architects
Sonja Krstić and Ivana Najdanović – textile structure designers
Petar Laušević – engineer of kinetics and power supply
Dr Stevan Martinović – commissioner
Dr Arch. Slobodan Jović – curator

The Serbian Pavilion delves into interdisciplinarity as a vital skill and circularity as a fundamental principle in contemporary architectural practice. “Unravelling: New Spaces” reflects on architecture’s ability to continually reinvent itself by re-examining the relationship between composition and decomposition.

The exhibition also bridges two distinct yet interconnected heritages:

The traditional, represented through Serbia’s rich history of braiding, weaving, and embroidery
The technological, symbolized by the “Belgrade Hand,” the world’s first bionic hand, developed in 1963 at the Mihajlo Pupin Institute

By highlighting these narratives, the Pavilion presents a poetic and forward-looking exploration of architecture as a repository of knowledge, innovation, and cultural identity.