Shifting in form and purpose, the Omani sablah resists definition.
It is where the community gathers to discuss social matters or to mark life events such as weddings and funerals. It is a place of conversation, celebration and mourning, whether between four walls or under the shade of a palm tree. The sablah adapted as cities in Oman grew, enduring as an essential gathering space for communities.
The Oman Pavilion is highlighting the sablah at the Venice Biennale of Architecture with a bold new take on the concept. To quote the exhibition literature, “the project does not aim to preserve the sablah but to reactivate it”.
Curated by Majeda Alhinai, the pavilion is titled Traces. It presents a sablah that, much like the core concept itself, is open to interpretation.
“With our structure, we wanted to create a space that had no fixed interior or exterior,” Alhinai says. “It's a space that is a series of thresholds that allow people to either pause, sit and gather, or to just move and pass through.”
At first glance, the sablah at the Oman Pavilion appears gestural and improvised. However, there is a thoughtfulness to its design. It takes cues from various motifs from Omani culture: the khanjar ceremonial dagger, the grilles of traditional windows and the decorative designs on mandoos storage chests. It also draws its geometry from palm frond weaving, the designs of wooden doors and the branching forms of the Falaj irrigation system.
“Since our pavilion is titled Traces, it's a series of traces of our craft in Oman,” Alhinai says. “They are metaphorical traces as well as physical traces, where we're starting to look at very specific ornamental forms in parts of our arts and crafts.”
Features of these traditional motifs have been deconstructed and abstracted before being fused together in the final result for the sablah. “We take some of these traces to delineate outlines and then adapt it back on to a physical form,” Alhinai says.
However, the sablah is in by no means in final form. Composed out of hundreds of 1.5mm aluminium panels, it can be reconstructed in many other permutations. The aluminium pieces are porous in some parts, promoting air flow.
“We first went through a digital sculpting process and then looked at the engineering to make a structure that is woven out of these aluminium panels and strips,” Alhinai says. “We wanted to create a structure that, once disassembled, it could be reassembled again in a public space in Oman.”
Accentuating the heritage aspect of the project is a series of benches that have been woven out of palm fronds. The benches are circular and in undulating forms, much like the sablah installation.
“The woven palm leaf was then referenced back on to our structure with the aluminium panels that kind of behave in a similar way.”
The benches were also crafted by Omani artisans, Alhinai says. “We really wanted to host a lot of our communal crafts that would be otherwise lost if we didn't carry them on,” she says.
“We wanted to create this collaboration with the local community. We commissioned artisans in the Bahla region of Oman. It was a way to bring our community into our space.”
Traces is Oman Pavilion’s debut exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. By reimagining the sablah, the pavilion explores how the structure can inspire adaptable and resilient communal spaces by bridging tradition and modernity while reflecting values of hospitality, dialogue and community.
“We are looking at our local heritage to extract these ideologies for space and circulation and movement, as well as form in a non-traditional way,” Alhinai says. “But it’s very much part of our arts and craft movement.”
Although deeply rooted in Omani tradition, Traces aims to be a global model for designing inclusive, adaptable environments that foster shared responsibility and connection. It also demonstrates how multifunctional communal spaces can address both local and universal challenges, promoting interaction and inclusivity.
“One of the main agendas of the biennale is to examine how can each country come together to create a global toolkit,” Alhinai says. “I really feel that, just by people understanding and knowing what the sablah is, their curiosity around the subject is a win for us.”
Traces will be running at the Venice Biennale of Architecture until November 23
