Invited by Carlo Ratti, curator of the 19th Venice International Architecture Biennale, Ma Yansong presents City of Plants, an architectural installation by MAD Architects. The work will be on view at the Artiglierie in the Arsenale, the main venue of the Biennale, from May 10 to November 23, 2025.
City of Plants presents a vision of a future urban landscape where humans and nature coexist in harmony, each playing an equally vital role in shaping the city. In this future city, the richness of human sensory experience within nature becomes the primary measure of urban quality. Skyscrapers, once built to express capital and power and to accommodate dense populations, no longer define the city. Instead, intelligence and technology are seen simply as tools to enhance daily comfort and convenience.
The installation is composed of three core elements: a responsive base equipped with high-precision sensors, an integrated audiovisual interaction system, and three connected ecological landscapes enclosed within dome-like structures.
The installation continuously monitors plant growth conditions in real time through environmental sensors, capturing data such as humidity, temperature, and light intensity. This information is then transformed into musical melodies, generating a dynamic soundscape that fills the exhibition space. As visitors enter, sensors embedded in the floor detect the rhythm of their footsteps, which are also translated into sound through a custom algorithm.
City of Plants is enclosed within a single dome that unifies the entire installation. It symbolizes both ecological conservation and a vision for a hopeful future. Also on view at the 19th Venice International Architecture Biennale is the Pavilion of China, curated by Ma Yansong, along with MAD’s outdoor installation for the Pavilion titled Chinese Paper Umbrella. Both projects are currently on display at the Venice Arsenale exhibition area.
