We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture

The Milan Triennale opens May 13, 2025 with the 24th International Exhibition Inequalities. After addressing sustainability with Broken Nature in 2019 and the mysteries of the universe with Unknown Unknowns in 2022, Inequalities concludes the trilogy by addressing the growing inequity that characterizes our world. As part of this collective project, Princeton School of Architecture professor Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley of Columbia University are curating the major exhibition We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture.

We the Bacteria is a follow-up to Colomina and Wigley’s celebrated Are We Human? exhibition. It explores the intersection of bacteria and architecture, emphasizing how they have been deeply intertwined from Neolithic times to today. The exhibition rethinks inequalities through the lens of bacteria, exploring alternative spatial, political, ethical, architectural, and urban models inspired by microbial communities. We the Bacteria operates as both a mirror and a projector. It invites visitors to see themselves as recently arrived trans-species creatures suspended in a planetary world made and maintained by microbes for more than four billion years. It then unfolds in a multi-media circuit that presents a new architectural history of the last 10,000 years from the point of bacteria that culminates with contemporary work by architects, designers, artists, engineers, conservationists, doctors, activists, scientists, and philosophers. The final 3D Petri dish space is inhabited by full-scale living bacterial installations fueled by urine, manure, soil, spit, and sunlight that generate new kinds of architecture and ways of collaborating with microbes. The gallery is no longer an isolated hygienic space. It pulsates with diverse interacting microbial ecologies and fills with the stains and smells of life.

We the Bacteria explores the politics of trans-species communities that sustain life and shape the built environment. It includes new works by Princeton professors Daniela Mitterberger and Elizabeth Diller, along with graduates Lydia Kallipolitti and Hayley Eber. PhD candidate Guillermo Arsuaga is the curatorial assistant. Current and recent students participating include Jocelyn Beausire, Foivos Geralis, and Sergio Perdiguer.

The thinking behind this exhibition is explored in the book We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture forthcoming from Lars Müller Publishers.