Architectural Lighting – Türkiye Pavilion in Venice
Details:
Location: Venice, Italy
Year: 2025
When architecture becomes storytelling, the invisible comes to light. That’s exactly what unfolds before visitors’ eyes inside the Türkiye Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), the Türkiye Pavilion can be visited from 10 May to 23 November 2025.
Under the title of Yerebasan (Grounded), the exhibition turns Türkiye’s space at the Arsenale – once Venice’s largest production center and now a key venue for the Biennale – into a liminal world of memory, fiction, and reality – atmospherically charged by a lighting design that is as precise as it is poetic.
Architecture deeply rooted in the Soil’s memory
The 2025 Türkiye Pavilion invites us to rethink architecture — not just through buildings, but through the ground that sustains and preserves life. Titled Yerebasan (Grounded), the exhibition approaches soil not merely as a physical surface, but rather as a living archive: an ecosystem brimming with ecological intelligence that bridges the past and the present. It brings to light the layered relationships between soil, cultural heritage, human life, and natural systems.
Curators Ceren Erdem and Bilge Kalfa invite visitors to engage with the multilayered forms of life that emerge both above and below the soil, encouraging a shift away from human-centered building practices. Through light, material, and a multisensory experience, the exhibition sheds light on quiet stories hidden deep under the earth — inviting us to rethink our relationship with nature, both spatially and emotionally.
Light as a narrative medium
The lighting concept was developed by Planlux, a renowned Istanbul-based lighting design studio known for its nuanced and emotional work. For Grounded, Planlux created an atmospheric lighting design that oscillates between clarity and obscurity, visibility and shadow — perfectly in tune with the themes of loss, memory, and fiction.
Rather than simply illuminating objects, the lighting acts as a narrative guide, subtly directing movement and focus. Sometimes pinpointed and clear, other times soft and elusive, the lighting highlights the stories told — as well as many left in the dark so far. Light becomes a medium of memory, evoking the idea of presence in the unseen. This layered approach was made possible through close collaboration with Avolux, whose high-performance, track-mounted spotlights now bring both technical precision and subtle poetic nuances to the exhibition space. Their adaptability and optical quality played a key role in achieving the exhibition’s elegant lighting language. The implementation was further supported by the integrated HubSense wireless drivers, enabling seamless control and flexibility.
The technological backbone: Solutions by Inventronics
This fascinating atmospheric play of light is based on a solid technological foundation: technology at the forefront of innovation. To power and control the lighting system, Planlux partnered with Inventronics, a global leader in LED driver technology.
The requirements for a lighting system within the historic setting of the Arsenale are demanding: flicker-free operation, precision dimming, and stable, efficient performance. The drivers provided by Inventronics deliver exactly that, enabling subtle transitions and dynamic lighting scenarios without any technical compromise.
A key challenge was that the Türkiye Pavilion at the Sale d’Armi building in Arsenale lacked a dedicated infrastructure for lighting control cabling. To address this, the lighting system leverages the wireless communication capabilities of Inventronics’ HubSense drivers. The luminaires now form a Bluetooth mesh network, enabling seamless, cable-free control throughout the pavilion.
Inventronics thus became the invisible enabler behind the exhibition’s emotional impact. The lighting itself tells the story, but it’s this smart, wireless infrastructure that makes it possible for the story to unfold with flexibility and precision.
Sustainable storytelling
The project’s commitment to sustainability is equally important. The use of durable LED fixtures, high-efficiency drivers, and intelligent control systems makes the Türkiye Pavilion not only narratively innovative but also ecologically responsible.
In a cultural landscape increasingly mindful of energy use and carbon footprints, this project demonstrates that storytelling and sustainability can go hand in hand – and that technology can serve both poetic and practical purposes.
Conclusion: A quiet but powerful statement
The Türkiye Pavilion is not a showy display. It relies neither on monumental forms nor dramatic spectacles. Instead, it speaks in a subtle, evocative voice that resonates long after visitors have left the exhibition space. Thus, it invites us to reflect on what has been lost, and what lies beyond the visible.
It is this harmonious balance between curatorial intent, design sensitivity, and technical precision that gives this exhibition its profound impact. Planlux and Inventronics compellingly demonstrate how light can become a storyteller, and technology a silent partner in shaping cultural experiences.
In an era dominated by architectural presence, the Türkiye Pavilion in Venice reminds us that the invisible also holds immense power – especially when presented in the perfect light.
You can visit the project’s website for more detailed information: https://turkiyepavilion25.iksv.org/en
