Venice Biennale to Spotlight Architects from Africa and the African Diaspora

The 18th edition of Venice Biennale di Architettura, dubbed The Laboratory of the Future, is set to kick off Saturday in the Italian city. This year, for the first time, the event will showcase sustainable designs from architects from Africa and the African diaspora.

Titled Guests of the Future, the exhibition’s theme is decolonization and decarbonization, and will highlight projects that have found architectural solutions for issues ranging from sustainable materials to housing issues to erased histories, according to the Ford Foundation, which, along with Bloomberg Philanthropies, is supporting the architects’ international travel to the event.

“As is the case with many elite gatherings and institutions, access to entry has been high, leaving a diverse pool of talent from displaying their expertise, and we’re hoping this will help open doors for other innovators in architecture and design from all backgrounds well into the future,” the Ford Foundation said in a statement.

This year’s Biennale, which runs through November, is curated by Ghanaian-Scottish architect, professor and novelist Lesley Lokko, who is also the founder of the African Futures Institute, established in Accra, Ghana.

“New technologies continuously appear and disappear giving us unfiltered glimpses of life in parts of the globe we will likely never visit, much less understand,” Lokko said in a statement on the event’s website. “In Europe we speak of minorities and diversity, but the truth is that the West’s minorities are the global majority; diversity is our norm. There is one place on this planet where all these questions of equity, race, hope and fear converge and coalesce. Africa.”

More than 20 projects were selected from across the continent, as well as locations from France to Fez, Morocco—the majority of which were developed by an individual or a team with five people or fewer, according to organizers.

That includes Nzinga Biegueng Mboup, a Senegalese-based architect who worked with Adjaye Associates for three years. She is now collaborating with Elementerre, a construction company specializing in local and 100% recyclable building materials, such raw earth and plants, that require less energy to create and are more suitable for hot climates.

Or the woman-owned, New York City-based Riff Studio. Its three-person team combines backgrounds outside of traditional design practice: building construction, historical research, and architectural pedagogy, respectively. “Our designs are riffs produced from dialogues between these distinct realms, as we contemplate the future of housing,” according to the firm’s website.

There’s also MOE + Art Architecture: a Nigerian firm “that is emerging as one of the leading design houses in Africa for their work to redefine African modernism,” and Cartografia Negra, “a collective based in Brazil that is working to reposition places in Sao Paolo that were used for the execution, sale, torture, and execution of enslaved people,” according to the Ford Foundation.

The marketplace has spoken and, at least for now, it’s showing preference for hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) over battery electrics. That makes Toyota’s foot dragging on EVs (and full speed ahead on hybrids) look fairly wise, though the timeline along a bumpy road still gets us to full electrification by 2035.

Italian supercar producer Lamborghini, in business since 1963, is also proceeding, incrementally, toward battery power. In an interview, Federico Foschini , Lamborghini’s chief global marketing and sales officer, talked about the new Urus SE plug-in hybrid the company showed at its lounge in New York on Monday.

The Urus SE interior gets a larger centre screen and other updates.
Lamborghini

The Urus SE SUV will sell for US$258,000 in the U.S. (the company’s biggest market) when it goes on sale internationally in the first quarter of 2025, Foschini says.

“We’re using the contribution from the electric motor and battery to not only lower emissions but also to boost performance,” he says. “Next year, all three of our models [the others are the Revuelto, a PHEV from launch, and the continuation of the Huracán] will be available as PHEVs.”

The Euro-spec Urus SE will have a stated 37 miles of electric-only range, thanks to a 192-horsepower electric motor and a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery, but that distance will probably be less in stricter U.S. federal testing. In electric mode, the SE can reach 81 miles per hour. With the 4-litre 620-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine engaged, the picture is quite different. With 789 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque on tap, the SE—as big as it is—can reach 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and attain 193 mph. It’s marginally faster than the Urus S, but also slightly under the cutting-edge Urus Performante model. Lamborghini says the SE reduces emissions by 80% compared to a standard Urus.

Lamborghini’s Urus plans are a little complicated. The company’s order books are full through 2025, but after that it plans to ditch the S and Performante models and produce only the SE. That’s only for a year, however, because the all-electric Urus should arrive by 2029.

Lamborghini’s Federico Foschini with the Urus SE in New York.
Lamborghini

Thanks to the electric motor, the Urus SE offers all-wheel drive. The motor is situated inside the eight-speed automatic transmission, and it acts as a booster for the V8 but it can also drive the wheels on its own. The electric torque-vectoring system distributes power to the wheels that need it for improved cornering. The Urus SE has six driving modes, with variations that give a total of 11 performance options. There are carbon ceramic brakes front and rear.

To distinguish it, the Urus SE gets a new “floating” hood design and a new grille, headlights with matrix LED technology and a new lighting signature, and a redesigned bumper. There are more than 100 bodywork styling options, and 47 interior color combinations, with four embroidery types. The rear liftgate has also been restyled, with lights that connect the tail light clusters. The rear diffuser was redesigned to give 35% more downforce (compared to the Urus S) and keep the car on the road.

The Urus represents about 60% of U.S. Lamborghini sales, Foschini says, and in the early years 80% of buyers were new to the brand. Now it’s down to 70%because, as Foschini says, some happy Urus owners have upgraded to the Performante model. Lamborghini sold 3,000 cars last year in the U.S., where it has 44 dealers. Global sales were 10,112, the first time the marque went into five figures.

The average Urus buyer is 45 years old, though it’s 10 years younger in China and 10 years older in Japan. Only 10% are women, though that percentage is increasing.

“The customer base is widening, thanks to the broad appeal of the Urus—it’s a very usable car,” Foschini says. “The new buyers are successful in business, appreciate the technology, the performance, the unconventional design, and the fun-to-drive nature of the Urus.”

Maserati has two SUVs in its lineup, the Levante and the smaller Grecale. But Foschini says Lamborghini has no such plans. “A smaller SUV is not consistent with the positioning of our brand,” he says. “It’s not what we need in our portfolio now.”

It’s unclear exactly when Lamborghini will become an all-battery-electric brand. Foschini says that the Italian automaker is working with Volkswagen Group partner Porsche on e-fuel, synthetic and renewably made gasoline that could presumably extend the brand’s internal-combustion identity. But now, e-fuel is very expensive to make as it relies on wind power and captured carbon dioxide.

During Monterey Car Week in 2023, Lamborghini showed the Lanzador , a 2+2 electric concept car with high ground clearance that is headed for production. “This is the right electric vehicle for us,” Foschini says. “And the production version will look better than the concept.” The Lanzador, Lamborghini’s fourth model, should arrive in 2028.