sinuous aluminum gathering space anchors venice architecture biennale’s first oman pavilion

'traces' considers how traditional civic space can be adapted for contemporary urban life, drawing from the adaptable social logic of the sablah.

ravail khan May 8, 2025 5 min

majeda alhinai curates first oman pavilion, traces

Oman’s inaugural pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale considers how traditional communal space can be adapted for contemporary urban life. Titled Traces and curated by young architect Majeda Alhinai, the exhibition addresses this intersection of the local and the universal by drawing from the spatial and social logic of the Sablah — a customary Omani gathering space that has long embodied practices of hosting, dialogue, and collective presence. She frames the pavilion as a generative and adaptable site that encourages informal encounters and invites new modes of shared use within a new context. ‘Our intention was not simply to showcase heritage, but to explore how architecture can embody values of togetherness, adaptability, and memory,’ Alhinai tells designboom.

A sinuous form anchors the exhibition, shaped from bands of folded raw aluminium stitched together into a silhouette that ambiguously presents itself as a host and a threshold while remaining uncontained by fixed boundaries. As it twists and contorts, the structure forms an unbound shelter and a surface that produces moments of compression and openness. Without a formal interior or exterior, the structure offers no single point of entry or prescribed use, inviting visitors to pass through, gather, or remain. A directional sound installation overhead, referred to by the team as a sound shower, diffuses fragments of daily life, including Arabic conversations, rhythmic chanting, and motion. Encircling its base and in contrast with its sleek materiality are a series of natural benches woven from palm fronds, inspired by the earth of Oman.

inaugural oman pavilion reimagines traditional gathering spaces as sinuous aluminum shelter — all images courtesy of Oman Pavilion

adapting traditional civic spaces for contemporary contexts

This ambiguity of form and function reflects the Sablah’s informality. Frequently seen throughout Oman’s rural villages and urban settings, from intimate interiors to shaded public spaces outdoors, the Sablah has traditionally continued to absorb the rhythms of everyday social life. Majeda Alhinai’s Traces draws from this adaptability, translating it into a sculptural architectural language that follows a logic of modular precision marked with light, ornamental gestures. ‘The Sablah is used not as a symbol,’ Alhinai tells designboom,‘but as a methodology: its open circulation, shared presence, and inherent hospitality are translated into architectural strategies for a new kind of civic space.’

Each aluminum panel of the structure is custom-cut and perforated with patterns derived from Omani craft and vernacular infrastructure, including palm frond weaving, carved wooden doors, and the branching geometries of the falaj irrigation system. While a nod to the decorative motifs of these crafts, these references soften the industrial finish of the pavilion and structure the experiential element of the space. ‘These references go beyond ornament; they function as spatial tools that shape light, structure, and atmosphere,’ the curator adds.

a modular structure rooted in social responsibility

Beyond its conceptual grounding, the Oman Pavilion works as a proposition that foregrounds architecture as a medium of social responsibility, aligned with the 19th Architecture Biennale’s curatorial theme: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.. As the pavilions and exhibitions on view throughout Venice spark important conversations around architectural innovation, critical discourse, and creative exchange, Traces begins by looking to one of Oman’s most traditional civic traditions and materializes it into a contemporary architectural strategy.

‘In response to Carlo Ratti’s theme,’ curator Majeda Alhinai shares with us, ‘Traces engages architecture as an intelligent medium that connects the Natural, Artificial, and Collective. It demonstrates how cultural memory and local intelligence can generate contemporary forms that are both context-specific and globally resonant, offering a civic architecture that is as much about reuse and responsibility as it is about identity and presence.’

The structure’s role as a host and a fluid space of representation will continue throughout the run of the Biennale as it will become activated by a series of planned talks and informal gatherings. Its material construction also reinforces this ethic, as the structure is entirely modular and designed for full disassembly without waste. All of its components have been developed with reuse in mind, and after the Biennale concludes, the pavilion will be transported back to Oman and permanently reinstalled as a public space.