10 design and architecture exhibitions to see in 2025

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Refik Anadol, In Situ

From Italy to France, passing through China. Here are the Italian and international exhibitions and events we recommend you not to miss this year

A not so slender thread runs through the ten exhibitions selected for the start of this year, tracing connections to break down the boundaries between disciplines and symbolically remove the real barriers: music and photography, architecture and technology, design and art that becomes dance are the areas of experimentation that animate the ten events presented here. From the ethnic incursions of Carsten Holler to the forays into the multifaceted creativity of Franco Raggi, from the places of respect to the futuristic museographic revolution, and from the tribute to Letizia Battaglia’s work of denunciation to the participatory efforts of Marinella Senatore, who uses light in Rebibbia to shed light on the living conditions in prisons. Projects that dialogue with the time, which has been and will be, and which traverse the space with a voguing step. Not bad.

CARSTEN HÖLLER

Created with the support of the Goethe-Institut Côte d’Ivoire, this is the German artist’s first solo exhibition in Africa: a tribute to his famous ability to explore disciplinary boundaries. His forays into art, science and human perception are brought together around four works: Alone (2011), Flicker Films (2005), The Forest (2002) and Fara Fara (2014), a two-channel video installation that delves into Kinshasa’s vibrant music scene. The work celebrates the energy and cultural strength of Congolese music through two rival icons of Congolese music: Werrason and Koffi Olomidé. Fara Fara DJ battle featuring @armannafeei (with special guest), for the inauguration.
Where: c/o SOMETHING art space, Abidjan, Ivory Coast
When: from 16 January to 2 March 2025

PASTORALE

In spring, the highlight of the Milanese cultural scene will be the work of the artist hailing from Vittorio Veneto (Treviso). The exhibition, housed in the Sala delle Cariatidi, draws inspiration from the history of the place that hosts it: the events of the twentieth century, those that caused its almost total destruction during the air raids of 1943, as well as the exceptional exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica in 1953. Vascellari’s is a monumental installation that will occupy the large room to explore the link between man and nature, interlacing the personal and collective dimensions. The project will then also extend to other spaces in the city to include performances, sculptures, installations and sound works.
Where: Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi
When: until 02 June 2025

EASIER TO BREATHE

A natural continuation of the exhibition that recently opened at the Milan branch of the gallery ‘Octavia’s Butler’, the new event stages the moment of relief when, after breaking down barriers, people move from imagining the future to inhabiting it. The space which the American artist induces us to enter is a space for joy and a greater connection with oneself and the world. Internationally known for ‘Love Watts’, the platform with over two million followers (including Rihanna and Katy Perry), Jordan Watson has been involved in Afrofuturism, an artistic and cultural movement that developed in the 60s, and through his works celebrates the potential of the black community.
Where: Chiesa Protestante di St. Moritz
When: until 06 March 2025

LETIZIA BATTAGLIA

Curated by Walter Guadagnini, Jeu de Paume - Château de Tours, a selection of 200 prints comprising vintage and modern works that highlight the talent of the Italian photographer, photojournalist and politician who has made the fight against the mafia her authorial signature. At the center of the exhibition is her incredible ability to portray the world, revealing all its aspects, from the most frightening to the most poetic. Created in collaboration with the Letizia Battaglia Archive in Palermo, the exhibition will return to Italy in 2026 to be hosted in the halls of the Italian Center for Photography in Turin.
Where: Château de Tours, Francia
When: untill 18 May 2025

salonemilano, Carsten Höller — Carsten Höller

G03_Mostre 2025_Easier — Easier to BreatheAlone, Courtesy Jordan Watson

G04_Battaglia — Quartiere Cala. La bambina con il pallone. Palermo, 1980, Ph. Archivio Letizia Battaglia

IN SITU: REFIK ANADOL

The Turkish artist’s work glides to Portugal to once again share with the European public his reflection on what it means to be a human being in the age of artificial intelligence. It all stems from data, primary material, reprocessed by a synthetic neuronal network. Paintings and sculptures, architecture and audiovisual performances are immersive environments in which to become aware of the urgencies afflicting contemporary life. With ‘Machine Hallucinations: Lnm-Coral’, at the Ennova Art Museum in Langfang (China, until May), for example, through a collection of digital coral sculptures, he leads us to reflect on the criticality of an ecosystem in a state of great fragility. These and many other urgencies are the starting point for his research that has lasted for 10 years and that Anadol, together with Efsun Erkilic, has decided to collect in Dataland: the first artificial intelligence museum that will open in Los Angeles in a few months. An unprecedented revolution.
Where: Guggenheim Bilbao
When: March 7 to October 19

SUNDAY

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, the Centre Pompidou-Metz is inaugurating a retrospective devoted to the theme of leisure: the works selected by the Italian artist from the Centre Pompidou in Paris have the task of presenting a broad reflection of the most enigmatic day of the week, Sunday. Emblematic pieces such as André Breton’s study wall and Marcel Duchamp’s chess table, are sorties into the social, political and aesthetic aspects of leisure that raise reflections on working time, public and private space, and spirituality. The exhibition will be divided into twenty-seven sections, each inspired by literary, poetic and musical texts, following an alphabetical arrangement that recalls the method of Gilles Deleuze. Under the guidance of Maestro Vinii Revlon, the whole museum will come alive with dancing, music and workshops devoted to the culture of voguing, involving the public in a fusion of art and performance.
Where: Centre Pompidou-Metz
When: From 8 May 2025 to 2 February 2027

ITALIA IN MOVIMENTO. Autostrade e futuro

Curated by Pippo Ciorra with Angela Parente, one hundred years since the construction of Italy’s first highway, the story of a century of travel: the exhibition reveals how highways have shaped the landscape, society and imagination of a whole country. The Italian highway is not just an infrastructure: it is a ribbon entwined with modernity and memory, connecting places, people and stories. With the heroic impulses of the twentieth century, the acceleration in post-war production and the eco-sustainable scenarios of the future, the exhibition is an invitation to rediscover Italy as millions of travelers have experienced it, over the course of the various eras. Presenting archival projects, authorial photographs, evolving maps and iconic images, the exhibition accompanies the visitor along a spectacular space-time itinerary, made up of the history of motorways as well as its recurrent places and themes. The four sections of the exhibition celebrate the role of the motorway as a protagonist of everyday life and collective storytelling.
Where: Museo MAXXI, Rome
When: until 2 February 2025

MEMORIALE 14 Agosto 2018

A place of respect and memory, of testimony and denunciation in memory of the 43 victims of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge on 14 August 2018. The Memorial designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti is an intimate and meditative space, with access from a reserved entrance on Via Campi. Video and audio materials, documentation, personal accounts, memories and a part of the rubble of the Morandi Bridge are the architecture of a narrative that follows a precise thematic sequence: from the construction of the engineering work to the memory of the tragedy, each thematic station offers the visitor the opportunity to identify with the victims’ families and the community to which they belong. An experience that nurtures the chords of empathy and invites us not to forget. The Bioclimatic Greenhouse, integrated into the form of the existing building, with its collection of tree and shrub species, gives a fresh impulse to life.
Where: ex Pila 9 del Ponte Morandi, Genoa

FRANCO RAGGI. Pensieri instabili

Pensieri Instabili, curated by Francesca Pellicciari and Marco Sammicheli with an exhibition design by Piovenefabi (from 7 February to 13 April), Design Platform, Triennale. The fourth appointment at the Design Platform – the space in the Triennale Milano devoted to contemporary design – is an exploration of Franco Raggi’s many-sided output. As architect, designer and an intellectual of projects, active on the Italian and international scene for half a century, the exhibition develops Raggi’s themes loved and known by the public of the Museum of Italian Design (and beyond). Hosting the multifaceted creativity of the Italian Master, whose work ranges from product to exhibition design, from interiors to publishing, is Piovenefabi’s textile installation: an eternal and contemporary architecture, a tribute to that rhetorical interplay of contrasts that so distinguishes his work.
Dove: Design Platform, Triennale, Milano
Quando: from 7 February to 13 April

IO CONTENGO MOLTITUDINI

Created in collaboration with some 60 residents of Rebibbia prison, and visible to the inmates and the whole community of the penitentiary until mid-February, the site-specific installation is an example of participatory art in its noblest form. Inaugurated on the occasion of the Jubilee, with the opening of the second Holy Door, and curated by Cristiana Perrella, the work is presented as a vertical structure that evokes the machines used in the fireworks of Roman Baroque festivities. “In my practice, the works are above all shared and transformative experiences, a reflection of my ongoing commitment to active participation and collective collaboration,” says Senatore. Hers are contemporary illuminations inspired by the popular traditions of Southern Italy, possessing the ability to transform a space into a special place where special things happen. The phrases collected with the members of the community are powerful expressions of hope entwined in a common narrative. Which contains multitudes.
Where: in the square in front of the church of Rebibbia prison in Rome