Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Donna Haraway

The selection of Donna Haraway was made by Carlo Ratti, who is curating the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia under the theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective; his choice was approved by the Board of Directors of La Biennale chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. It is an unexpected choice, given that Haraway is known for writings and teachings on technology, feminist theory, and other subjects removed from architecture. And unlike recent recipients, including Demas Nwoko in 2023, Rafael Moneo in 2021, Kenneth Frampton in 2018, and Paulo Mendes da Rocha in 2016, clearly Haraway is neither an architect nor an architectural historian. 

Nevertheless, Haraway is strongly aligned with Ratti, who, like Haraway, is a mutli-hyphenate: in addition to being an architect, he is an engineer, educator, and inventor. Haraway's highly original theories on technology and the relationship of humans to nature and animals is also aligned with Ratti's theme, which will look to science and other disciplines outside of architecture for finding solutions to the world's most pressing problems. He has written how Intelligens “will cast architects in the role of ‘mutagens’ stimulating natural evolutionary processes and sending them off in new directions [to create] design proposals and many other experiments, exploring a definition of ‘intelligence’ as an ability to adapt to the environment with limited resources, knowledge, or power.”

“Donna Haraway is one of the most influential voices in contemporary thought, straddling the social sciences, anthropology, feminist criticism, and the philosophy of technology. Over the past four decades, she has explored, in a multidisciplinary manner and with a constant capacity for linguistic invention, issues such as the impact of technological evolution on our biological nature and the ways in which the environmental context of the Chthulucene redefines the boundaries between human and nonhuman.

“Haraway invented this definition—after the American writer H.P. Lovecraft—as alternative to the term “Anthropocene” (normally used to define the human impact on Earth) to emphasize the urgency of the co-existence and symbiosis with other species. From whichever route one approaches the convergence of multiple forms of intelligence in shaping our future, the legacy of Donna Haraway will appear. Her work and philosophy, radically critical but simultaneously optimistic and imaginative, are distinguished by their commitment to creating alternative worlds: to constructing positive visions in which the difficulties of the present can be overcome or mitigated through the making of new myths and the cultivation of new kin. Her contributions to the way we understand science, technology, race, gender, geography, and the environmental history of humanity have left indelible marks on the study of each, and their precedence to the notion that natural, artificial, and collective intelligences act together is self-evident. As designers grapple with a rapidly transforming present in which nature, technology, and society all present symptoms of divergence from the world as we know it, Haraway’s theory empowers us and her observations guide us. With gratitude we recognize the lifetime of visionary literature she endows to the future, and we applaud her inspirations to architecture expressed in this exhibition and far beyond.”

Additionally, Ratti proposed a Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Memoriam to Italian architect Italo Rota, which was also approved by the Board of Directors of La Biennale chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. Born in Milan, Rota worked for Vittorio Gregotti, another recipient of a posthumous Golden Lion, and eventually started his own eponymous practice in 1998. Among Rota's commissions are a few with Ratti, including CURA, the Covid-era proposal to repurpose shipping containers as plug-in intensive care units. Rota died in April 2024 at the age of 70.

“Italo Rota was a forerunner. His vision was that of a world in which the relevance of living entities and biology in general, nature in the broadest possible definition, and finally science and applied technology were united in a single breathing entity. Throughout his life, he had the extraordinary ability to traverse the second half of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the new century by flying above the major styles and cultures of design, establishing himself as one of the most original figures in Italian and European architecture. Raised under the wing of masters such as Franco Albini, Vittorio Gregotti, and Gae Aulenti, he cultivated a unique eclecticism and a rare ability to combine poetic vision and extreme analytical lucidity. A man of boundless culture, a passionate collector and researcher of both Wunderkammer objects and technological devices, and a generous teacher, he has contributed to the creation of some of the most influential cultural venues in Europe in recent decades, with projects such as the restoration of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Museo del Novecento in Milan. His cultural legacy is well expressed by the title of his last monograph, Solo diventare natura ci salverà (“Only Becoming Nature Will Save Us”) (Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 2023).”