Ireland’s Representation at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – opened today, Thursday 08 May. The exhibition, Assembly, is curated by Cotter & Naessens Architects. Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland. The Ireland at Venice 2025 team consists of architects Louise Cotter and David Naessens, multidisciplinary artist Michelle Delea, woodworker Alan Meredith, curator Luke Naessens and sound artist David Stalling.
The Minister for Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan TD said:
“I wish the very best of luck to Cotter and Naessens as they represent Ireland at the 2025 Venice Biennale, the world’s leading architecture event. This is an enormous achievement and opportunity for both the architects and the country providing an opportunity to showcase the best of Irish architecture to a world audience. Participation at the Venice Biennale raises the profile of Ireland’s strong and growing architecture culture. My Department through Culture Ireland commissions Ireland at Venice in partnership with the Arts Council, and it is an important date in our cultural calendar. I’m wishing everyone involved the very best of luck at the Biennale this year.”
Architect Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects formally opened the Irish Pavillion in Venice, accompanied by Director of Culture Ireland Sharon Barry and Head of Architecture at the Arts Council Fionnuala Sweeney. The exhibition, Assembly, was inspired by by the innovative political model of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly, the design is a multi-sensory installation that offers visitors a soundscape to be inhabited and a space to be heard.
The first Citizen’s Assembly in Ireland was established in 2016. During an ‘assembly’, members of the general public are invited to help the Oireachtas and Government address policy challenges facing Irish Society. Assembly poses the question of how architecture can benefit the concept of the Citizens Assembly and facilitate open communication.
Functionally and poetically, the pavilion reflects on assembly as a product and process of making. Harnessing age-old, renewable materials, skills and collaborative wisdom, Assembly has been hand-crafted from Irish beech trees sourced and seasoned by woodworker Alan Meredith and features a carpet handwoven by Ceadogán Rugmakers to welcome visitors into its interior. Its resonant voids house a chorus of soundboxes, each delivering a partial fragment of a polyphonic soundscape incorporating music, poetry, interviews with the Citizens’ Assembly’s designers and participants, and recordings that reflexively document the structure’s own fabrication created by David Stalling in collaboration with Michele Delea. An instrument designed to harmonise a multitude of dissonant voices, the pavilion reflects on assembly as a product and process of making.
Describing the intentions behind Assembly, Louise Cotter says:
“From the beginning it was important that the piece was a phenomenologically rich, sensorial experience and that the materials were handcrafted and sensuous. Here we offer a space for visitors to experience the installation as embodied beings, with their senses and memories. We do not demand any particular interaction from visitors: They are free to reflect and sit with strangers in slow time.”
Assembly, supported by the Arts Council, will tour nationally through 2026 following its exhibition in Venice. A film documenting the making of Assembly, which has been directed by Michelle Delea, shot by Felix Castaldo, with sound by David Stalling, will form an important part of the national tour.
More information on the Pavilion can be found at: www.irelandatvenice2025.ie
