Visitors walk among historic shipyard buildings at the Venetian Arsenale, home to national exhibits including the Pavilion of Türkiye.
Türkiye has selected “Spolia Futures” (Devşirme Gelecekler) by the ba-be commons collective to represent the country at the Turkish Pavilion during the 20th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, to be held from May 8 to Nov. 21, 2027.
The project was chosen from 43 submissions through a two-stage open call coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). The Turkish Pavilion is presented under the auspices of the Turkish ministries of Culture and Tourism and Foreign Affairs.
The winning team comprises Başak Eren, Asya Ece Uzmay, Beril Sarısakal Erkent and Ece Yetim.
According to the selection committee, the proposal stood out for its strong conceptual framework built around the tradition of “devşirme” — the architectural practice of reusing materials from older structures, known internationally as spolia. The jury said the project has the potential to bring this regionally rooted approach into contemporary global architectural discourse.
Rather than treating reuse solely as a construction technique, the exhibition explores spolia as a broader framework encompassing coexistence, archiving, slowing down, repair and speculation about future forms of architecture. Developed through research and collaborations with artists, the pavilion will examine how adaptive reuse can inform more resilient and sustainable architectural practices.
Inspired by Türkiye’s long-standing culture of making and repairing, “Spolia Futures” proposes a local, circular and collaborative architectural model as an alternative to resource-intensive production systems, highlighting the role of reuse and collective knowledge in shaping the built environment of the future.
