Saudi Arabia’s Umm Slaim school shines at Venice architecture biennale

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of great urban, social and economic change. While it undergoes this transformation, a duo of architects Sara Alissa and Nojoud Alsudairi of Syn Architects based in Riyadh looks at and explores Riyadh’s architectural heritage and its relationship to urban and ecological resilience, highlighting how traditional building techniques can address global challenges, especially climate change. Presented at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, titled this edition “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective” and curated by Carlo Ratti, the Saudi pavilion is curated by Beatrice Leanza and assisted by Sara Almutlaq and offers a thought-provoking collection of installations, drawings and photographs capturing various areas in Riyadh and its traditional architecture amid moments of change.

“The Um Slaim School is a foundation for an alternative approach to architectural re-imagining through spatial narratives and materiality,” Sara Alissa and Nojoud Alsudairi say in the opening press release. “This pavilion will invite a collective retelling of our effect on the environments we inhabit and our urban histories. Our interest lies in that symbiosis, how our values and ideas shape our world, and how the parameters of our landscapes influence that shaping.”

Founded in 2021, the Um Slaim Collective presents the evolution of traditional Najdi architecture in central Riyadh, bringing together preservation with contemporary practices.

“The Um Slaim School represents a critical response to Venice Biennale's call to integrating multiple forms of intelligence—natural, artificial, and collective—in reshaping our built environment,” said Sara Alissa and Nojoud AlSudairi, Syn Architects. “We wanted The Um Slaim School to embody a generational shift towards collective spatial practices that cultivates an architectural ecosystem in Saudi Arabia and builds on the spatial knowledge of the past. It also seeks to develop a local knowledge that contributes to global discussions on urgent social, economic, and environmental challenges.”

The exhibition in Venice incorporates archival and contemporary works to explore how traditional and modern narratives can shape daily life in the city.

“Through the Um Slaim School, we aim to strengthen architecture's connection with diverse stakeholders shaping future urban agenda,” Alissa and AlSudairi state. “This alternative pedagogical initiative will aim to foster local, regional, and international collaboration, emphasizing context, community, and care.”

The Umm Slaim Collective in Venice comprises three components: an exhibition, a program of laboratorial and public sessions unfolding during the Biennale, and a concluding publication of collated outcomes intended as a proof of concept for concrete application after the Biennale.

On display in the pavilion are three new commissions by long-term collaborators of the Um Slaim Collective: a series by architecture photographer Laurian Ghinițoiu, a sonic scape by musician and composer Mohammed Alhamdan, and an installation by artist Maha Malluh.

As the architects put it: “By rethinking systems and spaces in which individuals learn, in response to our rapidly changing climate reality, we hope to inspire and raise awareness of sustainable architectural practices throughout the region and beyond.”

Al Ahsa, agricultural oasis located in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, is the focus of the Kingdom’s debut participation at the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition in Milan. Staged by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia, the showcase is dedicated to the region which has been inhabited since the third millennium BCE and recognized as the world’s largest and oldest oasis. Al Ahsa is also a UNESCO World Heritage site undergoing rapid transformation and the exhibition staged by Saudi Arabia, titled  “Maghras, A Farm for Experimentation,” reflects the Triennale’s theme this year of “Inequalities” looking at the urgent socio-economic and environmental concerns facing the planet.

The pavilion, which opened on May 13 and runs until November 9, is curated by Lulu Almana and Sara Al Omran with Alejandro Stein as Creative Director and showcases a space that combines both artistic interventions, programming and research to investigate the challenges as well as intimate connections between land, labor, and memory in Al Ahsa.

“We believe exhibitions at global stages such as the Venice Biennale and Milan Triennale help showcasing Saudi Arabia's unique position in exploring and confronting present climate challenges,” said the curators Almana and Al Omran. “Both pavilions emerge from deep engagement with our distinctive landscapes and traditional knowledge systems.”

The curators said their vision to invite “reconsideration of inherited practices and decentralized sources of knowledge as vital tools for resilience building.”

Through site-responsive commissions, research, and community engagement, they engaged practitioners and the community in a dialogue on the transformation of one of the world's largest oases as it faces challenges of groundwater depletion and desertification. The pavilion additionally explores how inherited farming practices, as well as cultural rituals involving crafts, songs, myths, are tethered to an ecology that is in flux.

Maghras presents findings developed during a year-long working program in Al Ahsa where cultural practitioners, architects, researchers, and community members were invited to explore and respond to the evolution of the landscape of the oasis and reflect ways in which its natural environment shapes the region’s ecological and cultural narratives.

The resulting pavilion in Milan presents learnings from this extended intervention, including three new commissions: a work by Leen Ajlan, an architectural designer from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, working at the intersection of spatial design, cultural narratives, and material experimentation. Composed entirely of farming byproduct waste, Ajlan’s piece interrogates the expansion of agrarian monoculture and the impact of artificial fertilizers. There’s also a multimedia film installation by Mohammed Alfaraj, a visual artist from Al Ahsa through which he re-imagines the local folk tale of a village landmark. Lastly, a there is also sonic essay by Sawtasura, a socially engaged research platform dedicated to non-tangible heritage and art forms in the Arab Gulf and wider region presenting work that stems from recordings and conversations revolving around women’s oral histories and sonic memory as forms of environmental knowledge.

“The exhibition represents our commitment to place-based design approaches that invite reflections on Al Ahsa's ecological and cultural narratives while confronting contemporary challenges,” they added. “As a nation that is adept in adapting to extreme heat and aridity, our heritage has a lot of valuable lessons to offer at a time when the world increasingly faces similar conditions. The pavilion positions Al Ahsa as a lens through which global conditions of fragility, adaptation and renewal might be rethought.”