ICELANDIC PAVILION - 19th ARCHITECTURAL BIENNALE IN VENICE

Client:

Collaborators:

Visual identity:

Type:

Size:

Year:

Iceland ministry of culture innovation &

higher education

Andri Snær Magnason, Jack Armitage &

Markús Þór Andrésson

Studio Studio

Exhibition

650 m²

2025

The project Lavaforming was Iceland’s first official contribution to the Venice biennale in architecture 2025.

The exhibition tells the story of Lavaforming which is the technique of harnessing volcanic eruptions to shape new architecture. A single effusive eruption provides enough building material for an entire city. In a matter of weeks, the foundations are laid without harmful mining and non-renewable energy generation. In this exhibition we go a hundred years into the future, visiting the city of Eldborg. Adopting the lens of the future inhabitants of the city, we learn how the development of this technique, in conjunction with the collapse of the climate, ushered in an era of radical change spearheaded by architectural innovation.

Propelled by technological, political, and creative stagnation of previous generations, humanity realized that conventional building materials and methods were unsustainable and harmful to nature. The ominous effects of global warming urge us to defy the status quo. Architecture can be the force that rethinks and shapes a new future based on communal ownership and a politics of abundance. The Lavaforming project illustrates how a localized threat can be transformed into a resource that addresses a global emergency.

Photos:
Ugo Carmeni

s. ap arkitektar