We the Bacteria. Notes Toward Biotic Architecture

The exhibition is structured into three main sections. The first part functions as a visual atlas that examines the evolution of inhabited space through its relationship with bacteria.  It provides a historical and interpretive reading, beginning with the human microbiome, then moving to the microbiome of the Triennale building and the home, and ultimately expanding to a planetary scale. This progression is expressed through three large suspended circles that introduce the installation and set the rhythm within the first gallery. These are interspersed with nine-meter-long tables, each displaying a heterogeneous collection of materials, artworks, and visual media that span 10,000 years of architectural and microbial history. A full-height timeline applied to the south wall serves as a narrative backbone for the displayed elements, highlighting how the built environment has contributed to the depletion of microbiome diversity, leading to a state of dysbiosis.

The second section, dedicated to the present, features a regular grid of cylindrical light boxes that resemble oversized extruded petri dishes. Each one contains an image and a real object, showcasing innovative applications of bacteria in architecture.

In the third section, titled 3D Petri Dish, ten installations present alternative ways of imagining the built environment—approaches based on a more constructive relationship with bacteria, hinting at the possibility of a probiotic architecture. This is an ethereal, seemingly sterile space intentionally designed to be colonized. Within this suspended environment—deliberately antiseptic in appearance—installations created by artists, researchers, and architects host living, active bacteria, which act as co-authors of the work.

The exhibition design makes the theme of contamination tangible from a material and sensory perspective. It transitions from the initial museum-like order—characterized by sterile metallic finishes and climate-controlled environments—to a gradual physical and visual contamination. Materials deteriorate, shifting from pristine surfaces to rusted structures, and the space opens outward through skylights and windows facing the park. This transformation reflects the desire to turn the museum into a living, permeable organism.

The final part of the installation is the Bacterial Library, a space for rest, reflection, and further exploration, offering visitors access to books and publications.

As emphasized by the curators, We the Bacteria is an invitation to reimagine architecture as an ecosystem in constant dialogue with microscopic living communities. It challenges the 20th-century antibacterial paradigm and proposes a radically different model: more contaminated, more relational, and more conscious.