At the Venice Biennale the challenge of a pavilion that marks time

For architect Mariam Issoufou, time is marked by listening. This was also the case for her latest project: the Rolex Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens tomorrow at the Giardini (until November 23). The Swiss brand has been the event's official partner and watch since 2014, a lasting bond that shows how many similarities exist in the ability to find solutions to human and environmental challenges, both in the construction of buildings and in that of timeless models such as the Oyster Perpetual.

Named one of the fifteen Creative Women of Our Time by the New York Times, Issoufou founded the studio that bears her name in Niger, and teaches Architectural Heritage and Sustainability at the ETH in Zurich. For this Rolex pavilion, she says, "I didn't think of a project and then find the best workers to build it; I did the opposite: I studied the local excellence and for this reason I built the pavilion around glass, the wood of old buildings, and the Venetian terrazzo floor." The facade recalls the knurled bezel of some watches, the glass ceiling by Vistosi is the work of masters from Murano. The care in the construction process was functional both to the envelope and the content, since a film projected inside the space tells the story. Perfectly in theme with the title of the Biennale, Intelligens. Natural.

Artificial. Collective, Rolex hosts the documentary Bourj Hammoud: enhancing what already exists. It was created between 2023 and 2024 by the young Armenian-Lebanese architect Arine Aprahamian who, thanks to Rolex's Perpetual Arts program, was able to count on the supervision of the winner of the 2021 Pritzker Prize, the French Anne Lacaton. Bourj Hammoud is the densely populated neighborhood of Beirut where Arine grew up, which became her field of research and today proves how small strategic interventions can improve people's daily lives. In the pavilion, whose general contractor is Unifor, you can see two other films dedicated to the renovation of two boutiques: the one in Milan in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the one in Tokyo.