As part of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, an “impossible conversation” between Stefano Boeri and Ebenezer Howard is published in the official catalogue of the exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, curated by Carlo Ratti.
The 19th International Architecture Exhibition runs from Saturday, May 10 to Sunday, November 23, 2025, and explores the theme of intelligences—human, natural, animal, and artificial.
Across the two volumes of the official catalogue, each project featured in the exhibition (involving more than 750 architects, engineers, mathematicians, climate scientists, philosophers, artists, and chefs) is accompanied by a critical essay. In addition to these essays, the catalogue includes a curious section of “Impossible Conversations” in the style of Umberto Eco: in each, an architect, professor, or researcher engages—through the use of AI—with a thinker from the past.
In this context, Stefano Boeri “virtually” welcomes into his office Ebenezer Howard, the English urban theorist (London 1850 – Welwyn 1928) and founder of the Garden City movement between the 19th and 20th centuries, which he laid out in his seminal book Garden Cities of Tomorrow.
This conversation was made possible through the use of artificial intelligence, which was able not only to absorb Howard’s body of work and give voice to his ideas, but also to respond and pose questions.
For more information: https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2025