Ancient Future exhibiton by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group at the 2025 Venice Biennale – All photos and visuals by BIG.

Architecture, Crafts, Technology. As you step into the Corderie dell’Arsenale at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, your eyes are immediately drawn to a rhythmic, almost meditative scene: artisan woodcarvers carefully etching intricate patterns into long timber beams, side-by-side with a robotic milling arm executing the same graceful gestures. This living performance is Ancient Future: Bridging Bhutan’s Tradition and Innovation, a stunning installation by BIG–Bjarke Ingels Group that brings past and future into active conversation.

• RELATED STORIES: Read more about the Venice Biennale 2025 on Archipanic.

“Ancient Future is an oxymoron,” Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, told Archipanic. “It explores how ancestral craft and advanced technology can co-author architecture.”

At its heart, the showcase is a dialogue between hand and machine. The exhibition forms part of BIG’s vision for Bhutan’s upcoming Gelephu International Airport, where these very beams, carved in Venice, will eventually take their place in the airport’s striking diagrid architecture, set against the awe-inspiring backdrop of the Himalayas.

For Giulia Frittoli, Partner at BIG, the message is clear: “The exhibition is about how tradition can evolve without being lost. You can tell the difference between what’s made by hand and what’s made by machine—but that’s not the point. It’s about how they support each other. Machines help scale the craft, but the artistry still lives in human hands.”

Rather than a battle of old versus new, this is a story of harmony and possibility. Ingels puts it beautifully: “This is not a clash but a convergence… bridging past and future, intuition and algorithm, ritual and precision,” says Bjarke Ingels.

Symbolism runs deep throughout the work. Central to the carvings is the dragon, a powerful national symbol of Bhutan representing protection, strength, and a bridge between the spiritual and material worlds. It’s a nod to Bhutan’s strong identity and the soulful spirituality embedded in its architecture.

The journey of the beams doesn’t end in Venice. After the exhibition, they’ll travel to Bhutan to mark the beginning of construction on the Gelephu International Airport—part of the broader Gelephu Mindfulness City masterplan designed by BIG in collaboration with Arup.

Gelephu International Airport in Bhutan by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.

Accompanying the live demonstration, a documentary by Laurian Ghinitoiu and Arata Mori provides an intimate portrait of the creative process behind the exhibition. The film captures the intricate dance between human and machine—their motions, sounds, and aesthetics echoing one another while revealing subtle contrasts. Woven with scenes from Bhutan’s cultural landscape—music, dance, and traditional architecture—it becomes a visual choreography, a ballet of craft and code that highlights the rich potential of creative co-existence.

In the end, Ancient Future is not just an exhibition. It’s a vision of design that honours where we come from while embracing where we’re headed. It asks us to imagine a world where tradition doesn’t fade—it evolves, empowered by innovation and shaped by human touch.

All photos and visuals of the Ancient Future exhibition and the Gelephu International Airport in Bhutan are by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.