Rooted Transience: AlMusalla Prize 2025
172 Dorsoduro Venezia
May 10 - November 23, 2025
Abbazia di San Gregorio
Rooted Transience explores the musalla—ephemeral yet deeply significant spaces for prayer within Islamic traditions—as a lens through which to consider architecture grounded in mobility, adaptability, and cultural continuity. The exhibition examines how impermanence can serve as a generative force in architecture, bridging historical practices with contemporary design thinking.
At its center is the winning project of the AlMusalla Prize 2025, conceived by EAST Architecture Studio in collaboration with Rayyane Tabet and AKT II. This work is presented through full-scale architectural fragments, offering a tactile and spatial encounter with the idea of sacred space as fluid and responsive
The installation is enriched by contributions from the finalist studios—AAU Anastas, Asif Khan, Dabbagh Architects, and Office of Sahel AlHiyari—alongside archival materials that trace the musalla’s evolving forms and functions across time and geography.
Rooted Transience invites visitors to reconsider the sacred not as a fixed location, but as a living spatial practice—capable of manifesting anywhere, at any moment, through community, ritual, and intentional design.