NASO interviews: The Team Behind Heatwave
On the Kingdom of Bahrain's Golden Lion Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale
“The Kingdom of Bahrain’s Pavilion this year explores solutions to the global issue of rising temperatures, building on local ancestral learnings of climate adaptation. As our world faces unprecedented climate challenges, architecture must play a central role in shaping spaces that respond intelligently and sensitively to these realities.”
Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed AlKhalifa
General Commissioner
The 19th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale opened on the 10th of May 2025, under the Curatorship of Carlo Ratti. Themed “Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective.”, exhibiting pavilions explored the interplay between ecology, technology, and collective intelligence. On opening day, the awards ceremony took place at Ca’ Giustinian - the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia - presided over by a prestigious international jury. Among the honors presented was the Golden Lion, one of the most prestigious awards in the architectural world; recognizing outstanding contributions to the field. This year, the Golden Lion for Best National Participation was awarded to the Kingdom of Bahrain for their pavilion Heatwave. Curated by Andrea Faraguna and commissioned by Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed AlKhalifa - the President of Bahrain’s Authority for Culture & Antiquities (BACA) - the pavilion focused on innovative passive cooling strategies in response to extreme heat. While shaped by the curatorial vision of Andrea Faraguna, the pavilion was realized through close collaboration and oversight by the commissioning team at BACA. For this exclusive feature, NASO speaks with members of the team behind Heatwave to explore the ideas, processes, and collaborations that shaped Bahrain’s Golden Lion-winning pavilion.
“Well, I think this is a ‘fil rouge’, let’s say. It is an interest that I have in the idea of rooting in a locality, and understanding the intelligence of a specific place. And for intelligence, you can talk about a lot of things, some things mystical or magical, and some things very very technical and let’s say, functional. But I would say that in this case, for this project, I was really interested in visualizing this idea of rooting.”
Andrea Faraguna
Curatorial Selection & Commissioning
“Everything started with the open call that BACA organized”, Faraguna recalls. Launched in the summer of 2024, the call welcomed submissions from both local and international participants. It was Mario Monotti, one of the project’s structural engineers, who initially drew Faraguna’s attention to the opportunity. That said, it would be reductive to look at this alone —Faraguna had been actively engaged with Bahrain’s architectural developments forsome time - “I must say that... In the last years, I have been following the previous versions, the previous biennale that Bahrain joined, and I have also been following what BACA have been building in Muharraq and in Bahrain in general, and I was already a big fan of this very... unparalleled activity. Because you don’t have any other comparable - I think - organization and effort in promoting architecture, in the Gulf region but really, I think worldwide”, he says. “So I was a mega fan already, and so we had to do it.”
Teaming up with Bahraini architect and academic Wafa AlGhatam, Faraguna worked to develop the historical framework of the project proposal-one that was rooted in Bahrain’s cultural heritage and contemporary context. Once consolidated, the proposal was submitted to BACA and reviewed by a designated jury as part of the selection process. With the project approved, Faraguna began working closely with Batool AlShaikh-pavilion coordinator at BACA-and the wider pavilion team. “We met with the curator regularly,” AlShaikh recalls, “at least twice a week, actually.” These meetings were primarily focused on ensuring the feasibility of the design, particularly with respect to material choices and alignment with BACA’s values. “We check the feasibility of building the pavilion-if the materials are in line with what BACA stands for. For example, [we] really push for sustainable materials to be used,” she explains. BACA also provided ongoing advice on traditional Bahraini cooling methods. “As I mentioned, we work in the Pearling Path, which is made entirely of historically built components, and so we know these traditional ventilation systems very well.” At the same time, AlShaikh emphasized the boundaries of BACA’s involvement: “We don’t like to change a lot of the overall design because it’s the rights of the architect—we’re kind of a host for them to show their design.” What emerges is a portrait of a collaborative yet clearly delineated relationship-between the curatorial team led by Faraguna and the commissioning body at BACA— one that culminated in the unified vision realized in Heatwave.
“In the past ten years across the globe, temperatures have broken records of heat consecutively, bringing one heat wave after the other. The effects of these heatwaves have been felt particularly strongly in the Gulf region, which was already known to hold extremely high temperatures in the summer months. As heatwaves become more frequent, the need for architecture to address environmental resilience and social sustainability is greater than ever.”
Noura AlSayeh-Holtrop
Deputy Commissioner
Making Heatwave
BACA’s open call was launched with a clearly defined thematic focus; one that shaped the conceptual foundation of the pavilion. In this year’s case, Deputy Commissioner Noura AlSayeh-Holtrop explained: “In the past ten years across the globe, temperatures have broken records of heat consecutively, bringing one heat wave after the other. The effects of these heatwaves have been felt particularly strongly in the Gulf region, which was already known to hold extremely high temperatures in the summer months. As heatwaves become more frequent, the need for architecture to address environmental resilience and social sustainability is greater than ever.” It was from this premise that the theme of Heatwave was shaped.
Faraguna and his team responded with a concept that approached the challenge from both a technical and spatial perspective. “This topic was architectural... let’s say architectonic and technical at the same time-so an engineering slash architectural intervention,” he explained. “We proposed a pavilion that is a simulation for a possible system that doesn’t exist yet... for a possible system that cools down air for public spaces, and specifically for the people that are obliged to work and stay outside.” As noted earlier, this proposed system was firmly situated within the context of Bahrain; both in relation to the lived realities of outdoor labor and the nation’s historical approaches to cooling.
When discussing his earlier work and broader portfolio, Faraguna emphasized that this approach-rooting a project within a specific locality—has long been central to his practice. “Well, I think this is a ‘fil rouge’, let’s say. It is an interest that I have in the idea of rooting in a locality, and understanding the intelligence of a specific place. And for intelligence, you can talk about a lot of things, some things mystical or magical, and some things very very technical and let’s say, functional.” He continues, “But I would say that in this case, for this project, I was really interested in visualizing this idea of rooting.” This emphasis helps to clarify why Heatwave is anchored by a defining image; one that makes this rooting both literal and conceptual. “If you see the image that most represents the project, it is the diagram—the section of the building. It goes down 20 meters and goes up 20 meters and the space is compressed by these two axes.”
Alongside the physical pavilion, an equally important dimension of the project was the development of the accompanying publication. Conceived as both a critical extension and a documentation of Heatwave, the book brought together the theoretical, historical, and technical research underpinning the project. It is here that the collaborative ethos between curatorial and commissioning teams becomes especially visible.
The Pavilion Book
The publication emerges as both a thoughtfully designed project and a platform for diverse perspectives. Its graphic design-led by Samuel Bänziger, Rosario Florio, and Larissa Kasper-was the result of a collaborative process developed in close dialogue with Andrea Faraguna and the BACA team. Equally, the book brings together a wide range of intellectual voices to engage with the pavilion’s core concerns. Faraguna underscored this point, highlighting the extensive outreach behind the editorial process: “We started contacting different people in order to have a choral voice, and also voices from different fields. We wanted to have a really rich surrounding of voices around this topic. You can see the book, but I can tell you that the contributions are from different countries, and a different mix of people that I really really liked.”
Reflecting this collective spirit, the publication includes contributions from Abdulla Janahi, Alexander Puzrin, Caitlin Mueller, Eduardo Gascón Alvarez, Jonathan Brearley, Laila Al Shaikh, Latifa Al Khayat, Leslie Norford, Maitham Al Mubarak, Maryam Al Jomairi, Mohammad Salim, Paris Bezanis, Viola Zhang, and Wafa Al Ghatam. Visual material was provided by photographer Eman Ali.
Among the many compelling contributions is a visual and historical survey featuring archival photographs of outdoor labourers active in Bahrain between the 1950s and 1970s. “We actually worked closely with [the contributors] and the archives from Bapco refinery, and the archive of BACA. To help find these archival photographs. [It] really gives you a glimpse of these labour activities that - most of which - don’t exist anymore.”
As for the design of the book, considerable thought went into this too. “It’s completely red, the title is also in red,” AlShaikh notes. “And why we took red is because red is the fastest pigment to fade. So I had this book on my desk at work for a whole year and I didn’t move it, and the sun was hitting the spine directly—and the spine was completely white a year later.” In this quiet gesture of impermanence, the book becomes an index of the very conditions it responds to-sunlight, heat and time. Therefore, the symbolism of rising temperatures was not only discussed in the text, but embedded in the object itself. AlShaikh adds that the team even attempted to demonstrate this at the Biennale: “We kind of tried to put it in the sun in the Biennale, but it was very gloomy and nothing happened,” she laughs.
Altogether, through its layered content and considered design, the Heatwave publication extends the pavilion’s core inquiries into new temporal and intellectual spaces; underscoring the project’s commitment to both situated research and long-term resonance.
Recognition & Reflection
In closing our conversation, Faraguna reflected on the collaborative nature of Heatwave as one of the most meaningful aspects of the project: “I really enjoyed this collaboration with people that I would not have been working with in my practice. What I appreciated most was that it was a mixture of interests, a mixture of urgent topics— and, of course, it’s a non-commercial operation, so I gave myself, and the people around me, the time—and also the luxury-of working on something necessary.” It is a sentiment that resonates deeply, given how inseparable the pavilion’s success was from the collective efforts behind it.
The culmination of Heatwave was rewarding in many senses: in the realization of a project that coherently brought together diverse fields of knowledge, and in the international recognition it received through the awarding of the Golden Lion. As both a built space and a body of research, Heatwave stands as a testament to what can emerge when architectural thinking is grounded in collaboration, care, and climate-consciousness.
Full credits for the Bahrain Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale are listed below, acknowledging all individuals and teams involved in its conception, design, and realization.
Commissioner
HE Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, President of the Bahrain Authority for
Culture and Antiquities
Deputy Commissioner
Noura Al Sayeh-Holtrop
Pavilion Coordinator
Batool Al Shaikh
Assistant Coordinator
Sara Ali
Curation, Design, and Research Lead
Andrea Faraguna
Publication Contributors
Abdulla Janahi, Alexander Puzrin, Caitlin Mueller, Eduardo Gascón Alvarez, Jonathan Brearley, Laila Al Shaikh, Latifa Al Khayat, Leslie Norford, Maitham Al Mubarak, Maryam Al Jomairi, Mohammad Salim, Paris Bezanis, Viola Zhang, Wafa Al Ghatam
Research Contributors
Concept developed with sub, Deniz Celtek, Eugenio Superchi, Freddy Vetter, Gösta Andreas Lönn Grill, Julia Wiesiollek, Paris Bezanis, RoulaAssaf
Exhibition Contributors
Abdulla Janahi, Alexander Puzrin, Eman Ali, Laila Al Shaikh, Maitham Al Mubarak, Mario Monotti, Mohammad Salim
Photography
Eman Ali
Publication Editor
Andrea Faraguna
Graphic Design
Samuel Bänziger, Rosario Florio, Larissa Kasper
English Copyediting
Marc Zakharia
Arabic Translation
Hassan Al Jundi
Installation Execution
Bacciolo, Aernova, FCF Impianti
Sponsorship
Itas Mutua, Itas Vita, Elena Faraguna Assicurazioni, Zumtobel, Huesker
Cover image courtesy of Ishaq Madan.