The European Cultural Center (ECC) is an international institution with various branches around the world, including the Italian one in Venice, the ECC Italy. Founded in 2002, the ECC was born with the aim of creating a platform open to international artists, architects, designers and universities who are invited every year to present in its Venetian offices works and projects created through a wide range of media. In this way , dynamic exhibition spaces develop that showcase an exchange of ideas and thoughts from very different cultures.

ECC Italy organizes every other year in its offices in Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo and in the Marinaressa Gardens , the biennial exhibitions of contemporary art 'Personal Structures' and of architecture 'Time Space Existence' . The European Cultural Center also offers educational programs created by the European Cultural Academy (ECA) and organizes every year the awards ceremony for the conferral of the ECC Award, a prize awarded to an artist, an architect, a designer or a university who presented a particularly significant work on display.

In addition to the exhibition catalogues, the ECC edits publications dedicated to special projects in contemporary art and architecture, together with the video series TIME SPACE EXISTENCE , which collects interviews with illustrious exponents of contemporary architecture, such as Ricardo Bofill, Balkrishna Doshi, Odile Decq, Toshiko Mori, Bjarke Ingels, Tatiana Bilbao and many more.

Every year, projects dedicated to current issues, innovative and in some cases utopian proposals of artistic and architectural expression are set up in the ECC exhibition venues; a selection of projects ranging from conceptual representations, models, photographs, videos, sculptures, up to site specific installations. The European Cultural Center aims to stimulate an exchange of ideas and projects between architects, designers, artists, photographers, universities, established professionals and emerging studios; a heterogeneous group of participants engaged in different disciplines, but who together can play a crucial role in shaping the future of our lives and habits.