Estonia Pavilion wraps a Venetian building with insulation panels

Let me warm you, Estonian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale - Photo by ©Joosep Kivimäe.

Let me warm you, Estonian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale – Photos by ©Joosep Kivimäe.

Architecture. Walking on a Venetian promenade, a historical building’s facade covered with white insulation panels catches your attention. Italy’s strict rules and regulations to preserve its historical heritage would not allow it. How’s it possible? Welcome to the Estonia Pavilion in Venice for the 19th Architecture Biennale. Titled Let Me Warm You, this provocative exhibition explores whether current insulation-driven renovations merely comply with sustainable energy targets or can also enhance the spatial and social quality of mass housing districts.

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

In Estonia–and other European countries as well—the majority of residents are homeowners of often energy-inefficient buildings. “The EU and our governments have set a goal to renovate thousands of buildings within 25 years, but the economic effort is mostly on the single stakeholders.” Co-curator Helena Männa told Archipanic.

The Estonia Pavilion exposes “the clash between bold global ambitions and the everyday realities of people navigating collective decisions.” Curators believe that insulation should not be treated as a bandage-like, mere quick fix, but rather a meaningful upgrade in quality of life. “We are not against the sustainability challenge. But what if the renovation marathon couldn’t only focus on the sustainability goal? What if it could become an opportunity to deal with social problems as well?”

On the ground floor of the pavilion’s building, a room wrapped in plastic film hosts an exhibition showing how social dynamics within different stakeholders affect spatial solutions. Visitors are invited to choose a badge identifying them as one of the players involved in the sustainable upgrade, whether a pensioner, a city official or an architect.

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Facing the renovation, all these actors must convene and unite to make choices and work out how to deal with the costs. “In Estonian mass housing districts, bringing together hundreds of small owners to discuss such an important and impactful issue is not an easy task, something we are not used to,” co-curator Elina Liiva told Archipanic.

At the centre of the exhibition, a model of a Soviet-era housing block brings human interactions to the forefront, using theatrical dialogues and exaggerated spatial outcomes to depict how different relationships and interactions have their impact on space.

The Let Me Warm You exhibition highlights the complexities of collective living and renovation decisions and “invites visitors to reflect on the tension between policy-driven energy goals and the lived realities of those affected by them.”

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