Mariam Issoufou designs Rolex Pavilion for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale
The Rolex Pavilion is designed by Mariam Issoufou. Image credit: ©Rolex/Matthieu Gafsou
May 2025: Mariam Issoufou Architects is proud to reveal the design for the Rolex Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition (also referred to as the Venice Architecture Biennale). Curated by Carlo Ratti, this year’s biennale draws attention to the climate’s vulnerability and the need for collaboration across different forms of intelligence, as we adapt and collaborate towards a different future. Drawing on the skills of local craftspeople and utilising waste materials, the pavilion aims to be a resource-efficient, locally-made intervention. The design departure was the shape of Venice itself, an island sinuously split in half by the Grand Canal, inspiring a form and space to hold exhibitions. With Mariam Issoufou’s intersectional approach to sustainability and the Rolex brief at the heart of the project, all aspects of the pavilion were produced and upcycled locally in Italy, particularly Venice, or recycled from other projects.
Mariam Issoufou said: “Being approached by Rolex to design this pavilion is a true honour. The Rolex Pavilion gave us an opportunity to explore our intersectional approach to sustainability in collaboration with Italian crafters and makers. I visited Venice several times during the research part of the process and I was intrigued by the talent and the commitment to craft that dates back centuries. I was really excited to collaborate with local makers and crafters.” Mariam Issoufou Architects’ intersectional approach to sustainability extends beyond ecological sustainability, ensuring that the project uplifts the social fabric, cultural history and economic conditions of the people we collaborate with. The pavilion took inspiration from the green in Rolex’s brand identity as well as the watchmaker’s dedication to craft and timeless design.
The interior of the Rolex pavilion features exhibitions. ©Rolex/Matthieu Gafsou
The Venetian glass masters, Vistosi, created the circular glass discs that make up the ceiling of the pavilion, and extend the language of the tree leaves dangling above. The translucent coloured ceiling provides abundant dappled natural light that morphs along the Earth’s natural cycle as the day moves from light to dark. Glass is front of mind on the floor as well, where the terrazzo employs recycled glass shards from Murano as aggregate, while the overall metal structure of the project is composed of bolted fully recyclable steel. An embodiment of material circularity and the folding capacity of time, 200-year-old Venetian Palazzi wood beams are repurposed and transformed into walls for the pavilion, maintaining a connection to the city’s deep architectural history and fashioned to evoke the fluted bezel of many of Rolex’s iconic watches.
The articulation and opacity of the form is ultimately a nod to Italian architect, Carlo Scarpa, who was deeply influenced by the history of Venetian culture, its landscape and its materiality. The exhibition within is orchestrated in a fluid manner starting with a look behind Rolex’s newly crafted flagship stores in Milan and Tokyo. The opposite end of the pavilion showcases the making of the Rolex pavilion and the work of this year’s Rolex Architecture Protégé, Lebanese architect Arine Aprahamian, who was mentored by French architect and educator, Anne Lacaton. The biennale is open to the public from May 10, 2025 until November 23, 2025.