British Council: Venice Biennale Arch25 – An identity grounded in the earth

For the third consecutive year, we have collaborated with the British Council to shape the visual identity and global campaign for the British Pavilion at La Bienale di Venezia.

Context 

This year's exhibition, GBR – Geology Of Britannic Repair, explores architecture as an earth practice. A key part of the British Council’s UK–Kenya Season 2025, it is curated by a multi-disciplinary international team comprising of: Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi of Nairobi-based architecture studio Cave_bureau; the UK-based curator and writer Owen Hopkins; and Dr Kathryn Yusoff, Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London.

Approach 

The exhibition’s conceptual anchor – and the starting point for its visual identity –  is the Great Rift Valley, the geological formation that runs from southern Turkey, Lebanon, through Palestine, the Red Sea to Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique. This focus is the starting point for a deep and multi-faceted exploration of earth-based approaches to architecture and the possibilities they might present for planetary repair. The concept taps directly into our areas of interest as an agency: climate crisis, inequalities in society.

TEMPLO’s task has been to channel these complex themes into a compelling, accessible and versatile visual indenting that captures the vision of the curators and the attention of a global audience – many of whom will not be in Venice to see the pavilion in person.

An identity that rifts and repairs