Architects at Venice Biennale challenge Israel’s culture of erasure

Though small in scale, it explores the violent geologies of extraction, occupation, and colonialism. "We launched Architects for Gaza as a way of addressing issues within the architectural profession because we felt it was important as architects, within our ethical responsibility, to act," says Golzari.

"As an architect, what do you do in a situation like this? So, when we were asked to participate in the British Pavilion and present Palestine within the context of the Great Rift Valley, we wanted to go beyond immediate events and look at the underlying causes, the colonisation of the resources – because that's what this is really about. The extraction and exploitation of resources: gas, water, oil – but especially the gas in Gaza."

Maps and echoes

On the walls of the gallery are several maps, each outlining the material consequences of settler colonialism. One shows the destruction of significant parts of the West Bank's highlands, where the extraction of stone has left the landscape scarred and environmentally depleted. Beneath these mountains run four-metre-diameter pipes belonging to the National Water Carrier of Israel, which guarantees cheap and plentiful water for Israeli citizens, with limited outlets serving the West Bank and Gaza at higher costs.

Elsewhere, a series of 'time echoes' narrate the extent of Palestine's geological exploitation. Between 1932 and 1934, the British government utilised its Palestine Mandate to allow the Iraq Petroleum Company to construct a pipeline from the oil fields at Kirkuk in Iraq to Haifa, thereby enabling the Royal Navy to supply its Mediterranean fleet.

The British also granted rights for electricity supply to the Palestine Electric Corporation, headed by Russian Zionist émigré Pinhas Rutenberg, who built oil-fired power stations in Haifa and Yafa and a hydroelectric plant on the Yarmouk/Jordan River junction near Lake Tiberias. These projects exemplify how the British facilitated large-scale resource extraction and infrastructure development in Palestine, often prioritising imperial and colonial interests.

Legitimising control

As Sharif notes, Edward Said, the renowned Palestinian academic, referred to 'mental imagination' or 'imaginative geography', whereby colonial powers use narratives of emptiness or backwardness to legitimise their transformation and control of other people's lands.

"I call this pavilion a reverse case because it also makes a statement against British colonial rule," says Sharif, who is talking to me at Caffè Paradiso at the entrance of the Giardini, the main venue of the Venice Biennale. "After all, they were the ones who initiated the exploitation of Palestinian resources. So, having a platform within the British Pavilion is, in itself, a statement. It's also a way to challenge the mental occupation – the idea of portraying Palestinians as passive subjects."

At the heart of the installation lies the Travelling Lab, a project inspired by Gazans' reappropriation of the detritus of destruction. Representing what Golzari describes as a "shift from extraction to repair", the lab emerged from PART's 'Atlas of Materials' – an ongoing initiative that explores the use of salvaged material to reconstruct and regenerate Gaza and other areas of Palestine.

Fragments and rubble

"One of the most alarming statements made by the Israeli military was: 'We want to turn Gaza into a blank canvas and redraw it again," says Sharif, who was born in the West Bank but is of mixed Gazan and Nabulsi heritage. "This culture of erasure, emptiness, and colonisation also extends to the idea of taking all the rubble and throwing it into the sea to expand the American military port. But the rubble is my family.

"They're still under the rubble. Rubble isn't just there to mark what Gaza once was, the rubble is important to keep and maintain as a testament to Gaza's right to a city, a home, a neighbourhood, a street. It's also a way to mark the landscape – to challenge that aggressive colonial culture of erasure."

At Venice, and in collaboration with Gazan families, the architects have used basic construction materials to reconstruct fragments of homes and neighbourhoods. There are reinforcement bars and crushed concrete, fired and unfired clay bricks, and pieces of corrugated metal and timber. All have been used to create temporary structures for immediate use. A version of the lab, for example, has been developed as a mobile clinic, which Architects for Gaza first unveiled at the London Festival of Architecture in 2024.

Metal and concrete

"There is an emphasis on using ruins and rubble as markers of memory and ownership of the place," explains Golzari, pointing to different components of the lab. "For example, crushed concrete being re-appropriated to create what we call an evaporative cooling skin, as well as being a memory of this time. They can be easily revamped and reshaped on site by families or builders. Reinforcement bars are used to create the structure, while corrugated metal is included as a way of reshaping the skin, creating what we call a permeable skin."

These permeable skins enable the exchange of air and moisture, supporting evaporative cooling. They can also be easily reshaped, repaired, or adapted. "We're building on the creative practice of the Gazans," explains Sharif.

"It's not something we're starting from scratch. Gazans have been working with salvaged materials for decades. What we're doing is imagining a kind of matrix – one that hints at moments of hope. It's not a typology for reconstruction, because we believe it's dangerous to propose any fixed solution. The right to decide belongs to Gazans. What we're trying to do is simply ask: what can we do?"

According to the UN, an estimated 69% of the enclave's buildings have been damaged or destroyed, including over 245,000 homes. Amnesty International's analysis of satellite imagery and its verification of video footage has exposed Israel's deliberate destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including some of Gaza's most fertile agricultural land.

In June, the London-headquartered NGO documented the complete razing of what remained of the town of Khuza'a in southern Gaza. That destruction took place over two weeks in May, carried out as part of "a calculated plan to impose on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life designed to bring about their physical destruction, in whole or in part."

Contemplating reconstruction

Rebuilding Gaza will require tens of billions of dollars. An assessment by the World Bank suggests reconstruction will call for a minimum of $53bn, with physical damage alone estimated at $30bn. Even under optimal conditions, full reconstruction will take at least a decade. Under less favourable scenarios, recovery could take generations.

Golzari and Sharif, who are both partners at Golzari-NG Architects and lecturers at the University of Westminster, are adamant that any plan for reconstruction must come from Gazans themselves. "It was very important that we do not produce a master plan because that was not our purpose," says Golzari. "Any form of representation has to come from Gaza." Sharif agrees, arguing that international reconstruction plans adopt a one-size-fits-all approach and overlook both the people of Gaza and the richness of its spatial fabric.

"The discussion from an architectural point of view is, what type of reconstruction should take place," says Sharif. "Are these master plans being put forward by outsiders the right master plans? No, they are not. So the discussions are more architectural and spatial – they're asking: what is home? How do you bring ruins back to life? That's what the pavilion is exploring. It's about temporality, and the idea of the skin as something permeable. This skin isn't just a barrier, it's a container for something to grow within it: the Gazan home. It's intended to exist temporarily, then be dismantled. And it's suggesting moments of hope.

"Home must be built by Gazans. But home in Gaza today is not what it once was. The relationship between the street and the walls has been blurred by destruction. We can't understand home in the conventional sense anymore – it's no longer just a cushion, a pillow, a sofa. Home in Gaza has taken on a very different meaning. These are the kinds of questions we're engaging with, from an architectural perspective."

Genocide and urbicide

When the ceasefire came into effect in January, Architects for Gaza prepared to enter the strip with its mobile clinic. Then the ceasefire collapsed. Now it is a matter of waiting. If and when the architects are allowed into Gaza, the Travelling Lab will evolve as it moves. An extension to the lab can become a classroom, another a home. As Sharif explains, they are building a matrix of possibilities, suggesting new aesthetics and challenging dominant narratives.

"The aim of the pavilion isn't to create a beautiful object. It's to spark collisions, provoke discussion, and draw attention to a context that is constantly being made invisible," she says. "We're not saying anything controversial. We're saying facts. We're saying figures. We are calling for basic human rights. We're talking about ethnic cleansing, genocide, urbicide. And we're discussing this in very architectural terms.

"It's very important that we cling to the landscape and expose the brutal colonial strategies that are contributing to both ecocide and the spatial erasure of Gaza. This isn't new. We're facing it in the West Bank too, both underground and above ground. Our resources are being exploited. We must say: 'Stop. Enough'. There is no debate."

* The British pavilion was awarded a special mention for best national participation. The Venice Architecture Biennale runs until 23 November 2025.