ROLEX AND ARCHITECTURE
Architecture is where a wide range of disciplines converge, combining artistic vision and technical excellence. As in watchmaking, the strength of the design reflects a passion for precision, performance and aesthetics.

With an acute understanding of the harmony between form and function, Rolex has naturally forged close ties with the renowned architects who have been commissioned to design its own buildings around the world.

Since 2014, Rolex has served as Exclusive Partner and Official Timepiece of the Biennale Architettura, highlighting the importance of architecture in our lives, along with the company’s dedication to excellence in design and sustainability.

The brand also supports tomorrow’s great architects through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which pairs young artists with masters in their disciplines for a period of one-on-one mentoring and creative collaboration.

ROLEX AT THE BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2023
Rolex is once again Exclusive Partner and Official Timepiece of the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – the world’s premier architectural forum for new ideas that will take place from 20 May to 26 November.

The 18th biennial event, themed “The Laboratory of the Future”, is curated by Ghanaian-Scottish academic and educator Lesley Lokko, who is focusing the Biennale on Africa for the first time. Of the nearly 100 contributors to the six-part exhibition, over half are African and Diasporan practitioners whose work engages directly with the Biennale theme and commitment to carbon neutrality, including the topics of decolonization and decarbonization, leading to a more environmentally friendly, sustainable future.

“Africa is the laboratory of the future,” says Lokko. “We envisage our exhibition as a laboratory where architects and practitioners across an expanded field of creative disciplines draw out examples from their contemporary practices that chart a path for the audience.”

Rolex is also supporting Carnival, a six-month-long cycle of events, lectures, panel discussions, films and performances that explore the themes of the Biennale Architettura 2023, thereby helping to create stronger ties between architects and the public.

THE ROLEX PAVILION
Over the years, the Rolex Pavilion in the Giardini, with its distinctive design that reflects the iconic fluted bezel of many of the brand’s watches, has presented exhibitions featuring Rolex’s links with world-leading architects for its own buildings and the transmission of knowledge to the architects of tomorrow. This year the display features three sections:

Materials, craft and artisans
At the core of the Pavilion’s offerings this year is an exhibition, which highlights the materials employed by Rolex in its boutiques worldwide and gives visitors the opportunity to enjoy a sensory experience of the Rolex universe. The world of Rolex is suffused through the excellence of materials that range from marble, travertine, stucco and glass and are largely manufactured in Italy, near Venice. Films feature how these materials are fashioned into surfaces and objects of great beauty by skilled craftsmen. Signature features of Rolex watch models provide the overall interior design inspiration for the brand, especially the fluted bezel and the Cyclops lens, which magnifies the date on many Oyster models.

Rolex Australia – A sustainable future for an art deco building
The sensitive refurbishment of Melbourne’s Centenary Hall, which houses Rolex Australia, has demonstrated how a skilful retrofit can safeguard a historic building and improve its environmental performance.

Working with the brand, architect Peter Miglis, of Woods Bagot, has restored the heritage-listed, art deco building to its former glory while applying a gold standard of sustainability. Each level boasts a distinctive personality that references Rolex – the watch and the craft – without compromising the aesthetic integrity of the building’s richly detailed interiors and facade.

Administrative staff and watchmakers, who require dust-free workplaces, are brought together sympathetically under one roof. Centenary Hall echoes the ongoing pursuit of sustainable architecture, continuous innovation, precision and the best use of form and space that has driven the design of Rolex buildings for more than 60 years.

Retrospective of mentors and protégés in architecture
In addition, in a retrospective and celebration of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s 20-year anniversary, there is a display featuring the architecture mentors and protégés who have taken part in the programme over the years.

This milestone provides a moment to review the programme’s achievements, which reflect the brand’s commitment to the transmission of artistic knowledge between generations.

In architecture, six mentors and six protégés from around the world have succeeded in a rewarding collaboration that has provided new dimensions, insights and affinity. Over the years, their work has been showcased at the Biennale Architettura.

Rolex Arts community at the Biennale
Playing an important part in the event are also several individuals whom Rolex has championed through the mentoring and the Rolex Awards for Enterprise programmes.

Among those from the Rolex family participating in Force Majeure, part of the curator’s section at the Giardini’s Central Pavilion, are former mentor Ghanaian-British Sir David Adjaye OM OBE (Adjaye Associates) and his protégée, Niger-born Mariam Issoufou Kamara (atelier masōmī), as well as Rolex Awards for Enterprise jury member Diébédo Francis Kéré (Kéré Architecture) from Burkina Faso.

Participating in the curator’s complementary Arsenale section, Dangerous Liaisons, are two Rolex arts fellows – former protégés – visual arts fellow Sammy Baloji, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a principal of Twenty Nine Studio and along with architecture fellow, Paraguayan Gloria Cabral, who are united by strong environmental and social concerns. Their work together was made possible through the mentoring programme’s collaboration fund that aims to support innovative and cross-disciplinary artistic endeavours among the Rolex arts fellows.