Nordic pavilion examines modernist architecture "through the lens of trans experience"

The Nordic Countries Pavilion at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, which is revealed exclusively on Dezeen, aims to use the trans experience to investigate modernist architecture.

Titled Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture, the exhibition explores relationships between architecture, the body and the impact of fossil fuels on ecology.

Curated by Helsinki-based architect Kaisa Karvinen, it features installations by Finnish artist Teo Ala-Ruona and his team, who used the trans body as a framework through which to examine environmental issues in the built environment.

Some of the artworks in Industry Muscle include a car punctured by concrete columns, a rough concrete and steel shelter and graffiti on the exterior of the Nordic Countries Pavilion building, which was designed in 1962 by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn.

"In this exhibition, looking at architecture through the lens of trans experience allows us to critically examine the invisible norms and categories embedded in the built environment," Karvinen told Dezeen.

"It reveals how architecture often assumes binary, standardised, and idealised bodies. A trans perspective resists this standardisation," she continued.

"As we begin to question the bodily norms architecture is built on, other assumptions start to unravel as well, not only those related to gender or identity, but also larger cultural frameworks, such as architecture's deep entanglement with fossil fuel-based systems."

The exhibition focuses on modernist architecture, set against the backdrop of the modernist building in which it is located.

"The Nordic Pavilion, as a modernist icon, embodies architectural ideals such as purity and neutrality – ideals that still hold influence but now require critical re-evaluation in the face of climate collapse and the growing demand for justice and equity," said Karvinen.

While Industry Muscle is critical of some of the ideals underpinning modernist architecture, it aims to celebrate its reuse, said Karvinen.

"In order to inhabit and value modernist buildings, we must critically confront the ideals upon which modernism is built," she argued. "We need to dismantle some ways of thinking, not buildings."

In the past year, trans issues have often made global headlines. In the UK last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, which sparked debate and concern over how trans people will consequently navigate gendered spaces.

Ala-Ruona drew upon his own experience as a transmasculine person when designing the exhibition last year. With the pavilion opening to a global audience in Venice on 10 May, he said he now reflects on his work in a different context.

"The world and politics have undergone a shocking regression compared to last year," Ala-Ruona said.

"Although transphobia and transmisogyny have always been present, the direct legislative changes this year have been deeply disturbing," he continued. "Suddenly, the work becomes contextualised within a different reality."

Karvinen argued that by combining the ecological crisis, fossil fuel dependency and human rights in the Industry Muscle exhibition, it addresses "some of the most pressing issues in architecture".

"Architecture is deeply tied to social and political questions, and legislative changes affecting trans people are inherently architectural as well – they shape who has access to which spaces, and under what terms," she said.

"By examining the pavilion through the lens of the trans body, the exhibition questions fundamental assumptions about who architecture is for, how it is produced, and whose rights, bodies, and realities are recognised."

Italian architect Carlo Ratti curated this year's Venice Architecture Biennale. Speaking with Dezeen, he said the core focus of the event is the climate crisis and people.

Other pavilions revealed exclusively on Dezeen today include the German pavilion, which aims to stress-test people and Belgian Pavilion, which has become "a living laboratory".

The photography is by Ugo Carmeni.

The Venice Architecture Biennale takes place from 10 May and 23 November 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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