Paola Viganò will curate the Swiss Pavilion at the 2027 Architecture Biennale

As the source of major rivers, a reservoir of fresh water and a country with high water quality, Switzerland bears a special responsibility for this resource. Paola Viganò, together with StudioPaolaViganò and the project team, initiate new perspectives on water – not only as a resource, but as a subject, a legal entity, and a formative force shaping the spaces we inhabit – in the Swiss contribution to the 20th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

The exhibition unfolds along a spatial and thematic flow. At its heart is the performative installation I am water. Forms of water such as retreating glaciers, dams at risk, hidden rivers, buried streams, overexploited anoxic lakes and urban rainwater link design and artistic interventions with political ecology, scientific, technical and legal concepts.

The Swiss contribution approaches water not only as a theme, but as the medium of the exhibition itself – as a water flow that connects spaces, disciplines and perspectives and asks a fundamental question: How does the perspective of water foreground planetary and local scales of coexistence and solidarity?

Michael Kinzer, Director of Pro Helvetia, followed the jury’s unanimous recommendation and nominated the project for the 20th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2027.

Detailed information will follow at the end of 2026.

The project team

Paola Viganò with StudioPaolaViganò (Maria Medusheskaya, Etienne Schillers, Alessio Tamiazzo); Paolo Benettin, UNIL; Loan Laurent, HRC-EPFL; Marie Velardi, artist; in collaboration with ESTIA.

The selection procedure

The selection was facilitated through a multi-stage process. First, a group of five national and international experts recommended ten architectural candidates and teams. In a two-step competition, these candidates were invited by Pro Helvetia to submit to the jury a concept of an exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion.

The jury

The specialist jury consisted of Ariane Widmer Pham (Urban Planner, Geneva), Dagnija Smilga (Architect, Zurich/Vienna/Riga), John Palmesino (Architect, London), Mariam Issoufou (Architect, Niamey/New York/Zurich), João Ferreira Nunes (Landscape Architect, Mendrisio/Lisbon).

The exhibition

The 20th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia will take place from 8 May to 21 November 2027.

The Venice Architecture Biennale is held every two years in alternation with the Art Biennale. Switzerland has been participating in the Biennale Arte since 1920 and in the Biennale Architettura since 1991. It maintains a national pavilion in the Giardini of the Biennale. The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia has been responsible for the exhibition at this pavilion since 2012.

The Swiss Pavilion in Venice was designed by Swiss architect Bruno Giacometti and built in 1951/52.