Noura Al Sayeh

b. 1983

Bahrain

Noura Al-Sayeh Holtrop is an architect and curator with over 15 years of experience in the cultural development, architectural and planning fields. She holds a MArch from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). She currently advises the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities on cultural and heritage policies, where she oversees the planning and implementation of cultural institutions and museums as well as urban rehabilitation strategies. She is also a board member of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit.  

She has built a number of temporary and permanent architectural installations and interventions, and has worked as an architect in Jerusalem, Amsterdam and New York. She was the co-curator of “Reclaim”, Bahrain's first participation at the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, which was awarded a Golden Lion. She was also the deputy commissioner general of the Bahrain Pavilion at the Expo Milan 2015, which received a silver medal for Best Architecture and Landscape.  

Since 2015, Al-Sayeh Holtrop has headed the “Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy” UNESCO World Heritage project, which received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture as part of the Muharraq Revitalisation project in 2019. She served as an on-site reviewer for the Award in 2022.