When the sun rises over Bukhara’s old caravanserais, its ancient clay walls catching the light just as they did for Silk Road merchants centuries ago, the city feels like it is breathing again. This year, that sense of renewal is more than symbolic.

For the first time, Uzbekistan’s treasured city of Bukhara hosted a contemporary art event on a global scale, a 10-week feast of creativity called the Bukhara Biennial. And among its most compelling stories was the journey of a humble musalla, an architectural space for prayer and contemplation that has travelled from Jeddah to Venice and now to the heart of Central Asia.

A musalla made from palm trees and possibility

The AlMusalla Prize, an international architecture competition celebrating contemporary interpretations of communal prayer spaces across Islamic cultures, did indeed produce a striking winner titled On Weaving. 

Designed by EAST Architecture Studio with AKT II engineers and artist Rayyane Tabet, the structure is modular, elegant and almost entirely made from palm tree waste. It can be assembled and disassembled as needed, making it both sustainable and deeply nomadic, a fitting tribute to the cultures that once moved along the Silk Roads.

The musalla was first presented at the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, before travelling to the Venice Architecture Biennale prior to its appointment at the Bukhara Biennial. The pavilion was constructed using over two tonnes of waste from approximately 150 date-palm trees, repurposed into structural components and woven panels.

Saudi artisans produced more than 80 handwoven rugs and dyed fibre panels using natural pigments, combining traditional craft with contemporary design.

The project was made possible with support from Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy company ACWA Power and Vision Invest, in partnership with the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and the Uzbekistan Art & Culture Development Foundation. ACWA Power invested $1.2mn in the displaying of the winning project in Bukhara.

The design was inspired by Islamic spatial typologies, courtyards, shade and communal gathering zones and interprets the act of weaving as both a metaphor and a construction method.

Its journey mirrors the historical flow of ideas, faith and craftsmanship across Islamic societies. Bukhara, once a powerhouse of scholarship, poetry and medical discovery, shares a deep cultural lineage with Jeddah, the gateway for pilgrims crossing continents.

Healing and imagination

The 2025 Bukhara Biennial, titled “Recipes for Broken Hearts,” is an ambitious and poetic undertaking. Drawing inspiration from a local legend in which Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the famed Bukhara-born physician, created the recipe for palov to cure a young man’s heartbreak, the Biennial reimagines Bukhara as a living body, one that is fed emotionally, spiritually and artistically.

Curated by Diana Campbell and commissioned by Gayane Umerova, with Wael Al Awar as creative director (architecture), the Biennial features more than 70 works by over 200 participants from 39 countries, displayed across historic caravanserais, madrasas and mosques, including Miri-Arab Madrasah, Magoki Attori Mosque, Kalyan Minaret/Poi-Kalon area, Olimjon Caravanserai, Khoja Gavkushon Ensemble and Rashid Madrasah.

Each Biennial location represents a different emotional state: heartbreak as journey, learning, transcendence, mourning, or renewal. International artists collaborated with local artisans, embroiderers, ceramicists, weavers and miniature painters—to elevate traditional crafts as living, evolving practices. 

Workshops, culinary rituals, musical performances, full-moon gatherings, poetry programmes and masterclasses turned the Biennial into a living organism. Food became a central theme through the Café Oshqozon, rice festivals and projects connecting cuisines, histories and memories.

Saida Mirziyoyeva, head of Uzbekistan's presidential administration, visited the AlMusalla during the Bukhara Biennial opening.

Explaining ACWA Power’s support for the event, company founder and chairman Mohammad Abunayyan said: “ACWA Power has always seen itself as more than an energy company, we are a partner in shaping a shared future rooted in creativity and innovation.”

With the Biennial’s restored architectural sites forming the nucleus of a new cultural district, Bukhara is entering a long-term transformation. Future plans include a fine arts museum, a music school, studios and a digital archive, an ecosystem where culture and community can flourish long after the Biennial has ended.

For visitors walking through Rashid Madrasa or the Gavkushon complex, the intertwining of new artworks and restored architecture brings Bukhara’s past into dialogue with the present. 

And in Bukhara, the city of poets, scholars and dreamers, that energy found a perfect home.