{"id":951,"date":"2025-05-29T10:10:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/?p=951"},"modified":"2025-05-31T15:13:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T15:13:25","slug":"qatar-charts-architecture-of-belonging-and-care-across-menasa-region-at-venice-biennale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/29\/qatar-charts-architecture-of-belonging-and-care-across-menasa-region-at-venice-biennale\/","title":{"rendered":"qatar charts architecture of belonging and care across MENASA region at venice biennale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La mia casa \u00e8 la tua casa<\/h2>\n

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Qatar\u2019s national participation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale<\/strong><\/a> maps a cultural and architectural history of traditions of welcome, gathering, and collective care across the MENASA region, split across two sites across the city. Titled Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La mia casa \u00e8 la tua casa, its first expression is a temporary pavilion in the Giardini by Yasmeen Lari<\/strong> <\/a>(read our interview with the Pakistani architect here<\/strong><\/a>), while the other is a major archival exhibition<\/strong><\/a> inside the Palazzo Franchetti. In the latter, curators Aur\u00e9lien Lemonier and Sean Anderson treat the metaphor of hospitality as a design principle that has shaped the built environment across geographies and generations \u2014 from homes, mosques, and schools to museums, gardens, and even entire cities. Doing so, they delve into some of the greatest, and emerging, profiles that have illustrated this across countries such as Palestine, Pakistan, India, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, and beyond. The show presents drawings, models, photos, and more from more than 30 architects and collectives, spanning from Hassan Fathy and Balkrishna Doshi to younger voices like Sumaya Dabbagh, Abeer Seikaly, and Rizvi Hassan.<\/p>\n

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Throughout the rooms of the historic Palazzo, the show is loosely organized into seven sections \u2014 each one pointing to a different typology of collective life, sketching a constellation of projects shaped by climate, community, and care. Here, the oasis is imagined as a generative metaphor for exchange and encounter, while social housing projects from Lahore, Mumbai, and New Gourna offer intimate insights into how the home can be shared, extended, and adapted in various socio-political climates. Mosques and museums, too, are included as civic anchors that embed public life with rituals of togetherness and reflection. The exhibition is produced by Qatar Museums<\/strong><\/a> and organized by the forthcoming Art Mill Museum.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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on view at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale | image by by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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qatar museums at venice architecture biennale<\/h2>\n

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The exhibition opens with Reimagining the Oasis, illustrating it as a simple water source in a landscape, a large farm, or even a city, and looking at projects from Iran, Iraq, and North Africa, and more. The space explores the role of the oasis in transmitting cultures over time, examining how water and vegetation have historically generated life, and as an extension, public space.<\/p>\n

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Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, for instance, in the 1900s continued to examine rural typologies along the waters, and how they could be alleviated for sustainable, collective living. More recently, Jordanian architect Abeer Sekaily has taken inspiration from the craftsmanship behind the tents of nomadic Bedouin communities to create her domed Weaving a Home tent which further questions the social implications of creating shelters for displaced communities.<\/p>\n

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Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La mia casa \u00e8 la tua casa | image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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CIVIC LIFE AS A CONTINUUM across community centers and mosques<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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Community centers are positioned in the exhibition as sites where architecture directly responds to the needs and practices of the people who use it. Whether improvised on woven mats or embedded in the civic fabric of informal settlements, these projects position design as an extension of shared life rather than a formal imposition. In Iran, DAAZ Office\u2019s Jadgal Elementary School was developed through participatory processes to reflect indigenous spatial customs while supporting education as a tool for economic and cultural resilience. In Cairo, Ahmed Hossam Saafan\u2019s Dawar El Ezba Cultural Center provides a kitchen, workshop, and gathering space within one of the city\u2019s largest informal neighborhoods, designed with and for a marginalized community.<\/p>\n

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Ahead, the exhibition looks closer into the role of the mosque in particular as both a sacred space and an architectural form crucial to welcoming a wide spectrum of human activity. From Marina Tabassum\u2019s contemporary Bait ur Rouf Mosque in Bangladesh to Sumaya Dabbagh\u2019s Mosque of Mohamed Abdulkhaliq Gargash in the UAE, this part of Beyti Beytak looks at the work of three leading women architects and explores how mosques often act as cooling centres, learning hubs, and places of shelter. Their openness, in plan and in social role, is central to the exhibition\u2019s reading of architecture as hospitable infrastructure.<\/p>\n

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Hassan Fathy, in the 1900s, continued to examine rural typologies along oases | image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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the making of domestic architecture<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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In City Houses and Social Housing, we encounter a shifting idea of domestic space, turning toward a more porous environment shaped by rituals and collective gathering. For communities in the MENASA region, the architecture of the home has been organized around cultural and spatial features such as courtyards and terraces that have allowed a degree of both connectivity and privacy. Works on view also consider how domestic spaces might have seeped into the street in the context of the bustling contemporary metropolis, becoming a part of the fabric of the city itself. In this section, drawings of plans outline Hassan Fathy\u2019s New Gourna Village in Egypt, while contemporary examples from Iraq and India show how homes are often co-produced and adapted over time.<\/p>\n

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celebrating mosque architecture by three women architects | image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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the art of gardens in islamic and secular traditions<\/h2>\n

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Building on this, the Art of Gardens section moves inward to explore verdant landscapes as crucial sites of memory and care in today\u2019s cultural spaces, while celebrating their role in visual practices. Projects from India to Qatar trace how gardens operate as sensory and spatial interfaces between built form and natural systems, in both religious and secular contexts. In Islamic traditions, the garden is a metaphor for paradise, symbolically tied to the water resources they hold. But they also work as a cooling device, a place of retreat, and a tool for ecological thinking.<\/p>\n

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Through carefully selected drawings and fieldwork, the section shows how landscape design carries emotional, spiritual, and architectural weight across institutions in public spaces across the world. One such example is the Chihilsitoon Garden, Kabul\u2019s largest historic public garden which was revitalized after destruction in the war of 1979-80, becoming a crucial shared space for the public and a sustainer of life and livelihoods.<\/p>\n

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the exhibition is produced by Qatar Museums | image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

\"qatar\u2019s
Sameep Padora, \u2018Memories of Landscape\u2019, Hampi Art Lab | image by Giuseppe Miotto \u2014 Marco Cappelletti Studio<\/p>\n

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Ajmal Maiwandi, Chihilston Garden and Palace Rehabilitation, Kabul, 2015\u20132018 | image by Simon Norfolk<\/p>\n

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Ahmed Hossam Saafan, Dawar El Ezba Cultural Center, Cairo, 2019 | image \u00a9 Ahmed Hossam Saafan<\/p>\n

\"qatar\u2019s
DAAZ Office, Jadgal Elementary School, 2017\u20132020 | image courtesy DAAZ, by Deed Studio<\/p>\n

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Sumaya Dabbagh, Mleiha Archaeological Center, 2016 | image courtesy Dabbagh Architects, by Gerry O\u2019Leary, Rami Mansour<\/p>\n

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project info:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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name:<\/strong> Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La mia casa \u00e8 la tua casa<\/p>\n

curator:<\/strong> Aur\u00e9lien Lemonier, Sean Anderson<\/p>\n

organizer:<\/strong> Qatar Museums<\/a> | @qatar_museums<\/a>, Art Mill Museum<\/p>\n

location:<\/strong> Palazzo Franchetti, Venice, Italy<\/p>\n

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program:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Venice Architecture Biennale<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0@labiennale<\/a><\/p>\n

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dates:<\/strong>\u00a0May 10th \u2014 November 23rd, 2025<\/p>\n

The post qatar charts architecture of belonging and care across MENASA region at venice biennale<\/a> appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La mia casa \u00e8 la tua casa   Qatar\u2019s national participation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale maps a cultural and architectural history of traditions of welcome, gathering, and collective care across the MENASA region, split across two sites across the city. Titled Beyti Beytak. My Home is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.diamondstatemanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}