Nieuwe Instituut presents SIDELINED: A Space to Rethink Togetherness, the Dutch contribution to the 19th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, developed in collaboration with curator Amanda Pinatih and social designer Gabriel Fontana. Hosted at the Rietveld Pavilion in the Giardini in Venice, the project reimagines the sports bar to question how architecture shapes social dynamics.
How can architecture resist exclusionary social norms? How can we create spaces that nurture new ways of coexisting? SIDELINED explores these questions by presenting an alternative sports bar, continuing designer Gabriel Fontana’s investigation into social dynamics in through the lens of sport. By subverting traditional norms and suggesting deviations, the Dutch Pavilion strives to change the rules of the game.
Sport, as both a reflection and producer of societal conventions, shapes group identities and can often be divisive, polarising and exlusionary. Fontana challenges these structures by understanding sport as an architectural system—one that regulates spaces, bodies, and behaviour—opening the playing field to inclusivity, empathy, and solidarity.
In collaboration with designer Koos Breen, artist Jeannette Slütter, curator Amanda Pinatih, and including works by a range of artists, researchers, and others, SIDELINED shows how built spaces can be hostile or welcoming, encouraging new ways of thinking about bodies, spaces, and identities.
Responding to the Biennale’s theme of Intelligens, the pavilion stages encounters that disrupt the norms of sport and its architecture, inviting visitors to engage through play and observation.
The 19th Venice International Architecture Biennale will take place from 10 May to 23 November 2025.
Photography: Giacomo Bianco, Cristiano Corte
