Sumayya Vally Renovates Heritage Building in Central London as New Arts and Cultural Center
October will see the opening of Ibraaz, a new cultural space reimagined by Architect-in-Residence Sumayya Vally in central London. The initiative is led by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation and aims to highlight art, culture, and ideas from the Global Majority: communities of African, Asian, Indigenous, and Latin American heritage that together represent most of the world’s population. The project seeks to bridge local and global conversations by creating a “world of many worlds” within a single venue: a six-floor, 10,000-square-foot building that has undergone multiple transformations, from synagogue to residence, club, and now cultural center.
The name Ibraaz means “to shine a light on” in Arabic, reflecting the center’s intention to encourage open expression, critical discourse, and collective imagination. The cultural space is located in a Grade II listed building at 93 Mortimer Street. Over the years, the building has served diverse functions: originally a synagogue, later the residence of Sir Robert Bateson Harvey, and then the London Galvanic Hospital. It went on to host the German Athenaeum, a cultural club for German artists, musicians, and businessmen. Following the club’s move, the site became an arts center, staging plays, concerts, lectures, and conferences, further embedding it in London’s cultural and intellectual life.
The architectural transformation of the building was led by Sumayya Vally, founder of the studio Counterspace and the youngest architect to design the Serpentine Pavilion. Her approach reimagines 93 Mortimer Street as a living, evolving structure that will continue to transform over time. Echoing ideas from her celebrated 2021 Serpentine Pavilion, the design draws on diasporic gathering spaces across London, often overlooked but central to the city’s social fabric. Within these reconfigured premises, Ibraaz intends to foster a generative environment where art becomes a means to rethink systems, tell new stories, and forge connections across borders.
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The year-round program is set to be multidisciplinary, with exhibitions, talks, screenings, music events, and a residency-based structure for its library, café, and bookshop. Cultural offerings will rotate between individuals and institutions, each responsible for activating the space for a limited period. Ibraaz will also extend into the digital realm, with an online platform presenting new commissions as well as content and documentation from the building. The space will open on October 3 with Parliament of Ghosts, an exhibition by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, which transforms the main hall into a site of reflection through the reuse of colonial-era furniture, jute sacks, and newly crafted elements.
In parallel with Ibraaz’s launch, Sumayya Vally is exhibiting Ingesting Architectures at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale as one of the special participants in the main exhibition. She also recently served on the jury of the 2025 OBEL Award, which focused on reuse and repurposing projects under the theme “Ready Made.” The award went to HouseEurope!, a registered non-profit organization promoting the social and ecological transformation of Europe’s built environment. Other recent developments in the architectural calendar include the inaugural Copenhagen Architecture Biennial, the opening of the Almaty Museum of Arts in Kazakhstan dedicated to contemporary art in Central Asia, and the opening of the inaugural edition of the Bukhara Biennial, open to the public until November 20th, 2025.
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