Interview with Carlo Ratti: the man of the future

The Italian in question is Carlo Ratti, 53 years old, born in Turin, an architect and engineer, a prodigy with a thousand ideas, at the center of attention and analysis from many - critics and colleagues alike. His long curriculum already reveals his inner drive: a degree from the Politecnico di Torino, he traveled between France, the United Kingdom, and the United States for master's degrees, doctorates, professorships, conferences, and curations. He is the co-author of over 750 scientific publications, and Blueprint Magazine included him in the list of "People Who Will Change the World of Design." As he tells us in this interview, he defines himself as “interlocal,” an Italian genius who feels at home in multiple places at once, has a great passion for technology, and firmly believes that architecture can change the world for the better. Will he succeed?

You are the new curator of the most important Architecture Biennale in the world, the Venice Biennale 2025. The last Italian to curate it before you was Massimiliano Fuksas in 2000. How did you approach this challenge, and what goals have you set?

Carlo Ratti: It is a great honor, and I am very happy. I wanted to focus on the theme of “intelligences,” hence the title: “Intelligens.” Declining the Latin verb intelligere, we find in the last letters of the word, the noun gens, meaning “people” in Italian. This reminds us, or rather evokes, the need for plural intelligence. An intelligence we can define as the ability of living beings to respond to the conditions of the external environment based on a limited set of resources, knowledge, and power. That is what has been the prerogative of architecture for thousands of years. The goal? By combining natural, artificial, and collective intelligence, I want architecture – long among the top contributors to emissions in the atmosphere – to find practical solutions to the challenges ahead, foremost among them climate change.

What innovations will you bring to this Biennale?

CR: I like to think of the idea of an Open Work, as expounded by Umberto Eco. Take nature, for example, which proceeds through different stages and never has a completed project: nature is an Open Work. We want to constructively engage the three intelligences – natural, artificial, and collective – through a process of “trial and error.” Architecture has been part of the ecological problem for years: now it's time for it to become part of the solution.

After graduating from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, you earned a Master of Philosophy and a PhD in Architecture from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar at MIT. Today you teach at both MIT and the Politecnico di Milano, and your professional studio, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, is based in Turin, New York, and London. How do you live as an Italian “citizen of the world”?

CR: Rather than “citizen of the world,” I would use the definition of the urban novelist Suketu Metha: “interlocal.” The interlocal considers themselves faithful to multiple places at once – a sort of urban polyamory similar to what is transforming many social relationships. As Jorge Luis Borges said, each of us is “all that we have read, all the people we have loved, all the cities we have visited…”

You have stated that the Biennale's installation process will start from Venice, an example in the context of the climate crisis. What can we learn from this city that is so fragile and unique in the world?

CR: Thanks to the MOSE, in recent days, we got our feet wet but there was no high water. The MOSE now allows us to avoid extremes, but we already know it won’t be enough forever and that in the future – 50 years? 100 years? – the sea will be too high. Venice teaches us that projects like these, integrated among architecture, marine system science, and engineering, are fundamental for the future. Venice, a very fragile city in the face of the climate crisis, can become a laboratory for the world.

The themes of innovation and technology underpin many of your projects and publications. From your perspective, especially in architecture, what impact do you think Artificial Intelligence will have, especially considering the ethical implications that are arising?

CR: Today everyone thinks of ChatGPT, which indeed will have many applications. But the concept of intelligence is broader, as we will see in Venice.

Remember that ChatGPT is just an “idiot savant”: it knows everything but produces nothing new. It’s like it synthesizes thousands of Google searches for us, providing the distilled information we need. The same goes for images: try asking these systems for a wooden house immersed in nature and near a watercourse. In a few seconds, they will provide a wonderful synthesis between Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, perhaps a wooden facade by Baumschlager Eberle, and an interior by Matteo Thun, among many other visual references that you will have difficulty discerning.

For the future, what are the projects and initiatives you are working on? Tell us, where do you want to go? What is the dream you have not yet realized?

CR: The most difficult project – explaining to mayors and local administrators in our country that our cities no longer need to grow. It is about stopping land consumption and instead reworking everything that has been built in the past.