Austria’s 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale Pavilion Teams Up with Bosnia‑and‑Herzegovina

When the next Venice Architecture Biennale rolls around in 2027, visitors won’t just see a typical national showcase. Austria has taken a surprising turn – it will open its pavilion side‑by‑side with Bosnia‑and‑Herzegovina, turning the space into a literal shared platform.

The idea, sketched out by the Austrian‑Bosnian design duo Maya Kovac and Stefan Weber, grew out of a series of workshops held in both Vienna and Sarajevo during 2025. Their goal? To dissolve the neat, often artificial borders that national pavilions tend to reinforce, and instead let architecture speak to the tangled histories of the former Yugoslav region.

“We wanted a setting where two countries could bring their narratives together without one dominating the other,” Kovac explains, laughing at the memory of the first draft, which featured a literal bridge made of reclaimed timber. While that bridge didn’t survive the budget review, the spirit of connection remained.

Inside the pavilion, the audience will wander through a modular environment that can be reconfigured on the fly. One moment, a quiet, dimly lit room showcases Bosnian post‑war reconstruction projects; the next, a bright, open hall displays Austrian sustainable housing prototypes. Movable walls, made from locally sourced limestone and cedar, let the two programs slide into each other, creating moments where the two stories intersect.

Beyond the exhibition, the pavilion will host a series of public talks, studio visits, and hands‑on workshops aimed at students and young professionals from both nations. Organisers hope the program will act as a catalyst for future collaborations, especially in tackling shared challenges like climate resilience and heritage preservation.

Critics have praised the gesture as politically daring, noting that Austria and Bosnia‑and‑Herzegovina have very different architectural legacies. Yet the collaboration feels organic, anchored in the reality that many Austrian architects have long worked on projects across the Balkans, and Bosnian designers often look north for inspiration.

In a broader sense, the joint pavilion mirrors a growing trend at international biennales: the move away from isolated national statements toward more fluid, transnational dialogues. As Lesley Lokko’s upcoming curatorial theme for the 2027 Biennale suggests, the future of architecture may be less about distinct styles and more about shared platforms—exactly what Austria and Bosnia‑and‑Herzegovina are building together.