A cup of coffee brewed with water freshly sourced from the Venetian lagoon has won a Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The project, “Canal Café,” from U.S. architectural firm Diller Scofidio and Renfro (DS+R), was selected as the best piece in the biennale’s 19th international exhibition, titled “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”
Billed as “part espresso bar, part laboratory” on the firm’s website, the project filters Venice’s notoriously polluted canals before biennale visitors’ very eyes. The murky water passes through a series of filters that mimic the natural cleansing effect of a tidal wetland. Once the water is made potable, it is used—with an assist from Michelin-starred chef Davide Oldani—to make a classic shot of Italian espresso.
“‘Canal Café’ reaches beneath the photogenic surface of the city by converting these brackish waters into the comforting scent and taste of espresso—the irreducible Italian pleasure,” the firm said. “The public will drink Venice.”
Venice, of course, is famous for its picturesque waterways, situated on a lagoon that not only protected it from invaders, but also facilitated trade, making it one of Europe’s most historically wealthy and powerful city states. But over the years, industrialization and tourism have taken a toll on the canals, contaminating the waters even as climate change has led to increased flooding, endangering the city.
Diller Scofidio and Renfro, “Canal Café” (2025) at the 2025 Venice Biennale for Architecture. Photo: by Iwan Baan, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
DS+R originally planned to stage “Canal Café” for the 2008 biennial, curated by critic Aaron Betsky, who was an advisor for the realized project. It was impossible to get the permits 17 years ago, but improved filtration made it possible to serve up canal coffee at this year’s event.
“Regulations and technology have come a far way, and part of the big difference now was that the methodology involved has been one that uses biological filtering rather than chemical filtering, so it’s more organic and natural,” Betsky told the .
The project is set up outside, with a transparent pipe drawing water directly from the Arsenal Canal. You can see the filter at work, removing sludge and toxins.
Half the water is filtered by salt-tolerant plants called halophytes that form a kind of natural membrane bioreactor, or “micro-wetland,” preserving minerals in the water. The rest is treated with artificial filtration, reverse osmosis, and UV disinfection, producing distilled water. The water is combined then steamed to make a high-concept espresso shot, available for sale for €1.20 ($1.36). (Any extra water is used to irrigate plants in the Arsenale.)
Diller Scofidio and Renfro, “Canal Café” (2025) at the 2025 Venice Biennale for Architecture. Photo: by Iwan Baan, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
To design, test, and monitor the water purification system, DS+R enlisted the U.S. engineering firm Natural Systems Utilities, and the Italian firm SODAI. Oldani has selected the coffee blend and ground the beans to the perfect fineness to ensure the espresso meets Venetians’ exacting standards.
But this isn’t just about the perfect cup of joe. Developing new ways to keep water clean is a challenge of particular interest to the city of Venice, which has built a high-tech electromechanical flood protection system called the MOSE Project. Longterm, those barriers may be in near-constant effect, therefore requiring new technology to keep the lagoon’s waters clean.
“Canal Café is a symbol of how we can provide citizens with access to drinking water through innovative technologies that protect the world’s most precious resource,” Pietro Salini, CEO of Webuild, the project’s supporter, said in a statement.
Jurors Hans Ulrich Obrist, Paola Antonelli, and Mpho Matsipa chose “Canal Café” is the best of over 300 projects presented by an impressive 750 participants in the Arsenale, as well as across the grounds of the Giardini, where the central pavilion is currently closed for renovations.
The international exhibition was curated by the architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, a professor at the Politecnico di Milano and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab.
“‘Canal Café’ is a demonstration of how the city of Venice can be a laboratory to speculate how to live on the water, while offering a contribution to the public space of Venice. It also invites future speculation about the lagoon and other lagoons,” the jury said in a statement. “We also acknowledge the extraordinary persistence of the Canal Cafè project, which started almost 20 years ago. It’s an example that biennale can be a long duration project and go far beyond the event.”
“Heatwave,” Kingdom of Bahrain national pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale for Architecture. Photo: ©Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of the Venice Biennale.
The jury also awarded the Golden Lion for the best national participation to the Bahrain Pavilion, curated by architect Andrea Faraguna. The project, “Heatwave,” aims to employ shade and passive cooling to make places in extremely hot environments more livable.
The opening of the architecture biennale this weekend sadly coincided with news of the sudden and unexpected death of Koyo Kouoh, the curator for the organization’s upcoming 2026 art edition.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
