LAVAFORMING - REYKJAVÍK ART MUSEUM



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Reykjavík Art Museum

Halldór  Ásgeirsson & Andri Snær Magnason

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2026


In January 2026 the exhibition moved from the 2025 Venice architectural biennale to Reykjavik Art Museum, Gallery A of Hafnarhús where the story was placed in a new context and developed further.

Lavaforming is a proposal on how the brutal force of lava can be turned into a valuable resource for the foundations of an entire city. The exhibition tells a story of a society in an imagined future in the year 2150, that has learned to harness the lava flow and thus turn a local threat into an opportunity for creativity, just as they did with geothermal energy 200 years earlier in Iceland.

A lava flow can contain enough building material for the foundations of an entire city to rise in a matter of weeks, without harmful mining and non-renewable energy generation. In this vision, architecture is not merely a form or a shelter, but a dynamic force that rethinks the relationship between man, nature, and time – and shapes the future.

More information about the exhibition here