The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative

Architects Anna Lacaton and Arine Aprahamian were cast as mentor and protégé in the Swiss watchmaker’s commitment to the development of remarkable thinkers.

When architect Arine Aprahamian received a text message asking her to apply to be a participant in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, she initially thought it was a hoax. “My work email was down, so they sent me an SMS and asked for another email address, and I thought, ‘A text from Rolex? It has to be a scam.’” It wasn’t. The Lebanese-Armenian architect was chosen to be the protégé of the Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Anna Lacaton for the 2023-2024 cycle of the watchmaker’s unique cultural initiative.

Established in 2002 to promote the transfer of knowledge from one generation of artists to the next, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative has covered a variety of disciplines including music, literature, cinema and architecture, which the company identifies as an art and a science. To date, architecture mentors have included Peter Zumthor, David Chipperfield and Kazuyo Sejima from the firm SANAA. Mentors from other fields include such illustrious names as Martin Scorsese, David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Toni Morrison and Lin-Manuel Miranda. In the world of luxury, there is nothing else like this program – but then Rolex isn’t like other brands.

The watchmaker is, for all intents and purposes, structured as a not-for-profit organisation, with most of its profits going to social and philanthropic organisations and causes. The company was founded by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis as Wilsdorf & Davis in London in 1905. In 1910, the pair invented the name Rolex to sign their watch creations as they wanted a five-letter, pleasant-sounding name that was easy to pronounce in any language. In 1919, Wilsdorf left England to settle in Geneva, where he founded Montres Rolex S.A. in 1920.

In the world of luxury, there is nothing else like this program – but then Rolex isn’t like other brands.

At its core, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative is a simple concept: a gifted young artist is paired with a mentor considered to be a world-renowned expert in their respective field.

In 1945, he established the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation after the death of his wife and transferred 100 per cent of the ownership of Rolex to it, and the foundation remains the company’s sole shareholder today. As a private company, Rolex doesn’t release annual sales figures but watch industry experts claim it produces about one million watches each year. All its profits go to the foundation, and it is estimated that it donates more than half a billion dollars annually to a broad range of activities, one of which is support of the arts.

At its core, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative is a simple concept: a gifted young artist is paired with a mentor considered to be a world-renowned expert in their respective field. They work together for a minimum of six weeks in a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Many spend considerably more time together and often form lasting professional relationships. Aprahamian divides her time between Beirut, where she grew up, and Rotterdam, where Müller Aprahamian, the design and architecture studio she founded with her partner Adrian Müller in 2018, is based. The project she is working on as part of her mentorship, however, is about Beirut – specifically the city’s Armenian enclave of Bourj Hammoud.

In her work, Aprahamian champions an innovative, affordable and sustainable vision of the future through architecture.

In her work, Aprahamian champions an innovative, affordable and sustainable vision of the future through architecture. Her practice is multifaceted and includes built work, installation design and research activities. She has also undertaken a series of adaptive reuse projects that shrewdly make do with what’s available. “In each project, we try to work with what’s existing,” she says.

Bourj Hammoud was settled and developed by Armenian refugees in the early 20th century. There was no real urban planning, and the area was crudely divided into small plots of 60 square metres, which were given to refugees who then went about building homes without any architectural intervention. “The plot I grew up in was designed by my great-grandfather who was a baker, not a builder or an architect,” says Aprahamian. “It was a case of the community working together to build this neighbourhood.”

To date, architecture mentors have included Peter Zumthor, David Chipperfield and Kazuyo Sejima from the firm SANAA.

It was her work in designing with existing structures and building fabrics that appealed to Anne Lacaton, who established her practice, Lacaton & Vassal, in 1987 with her partner Jean-Philippe Vassal. Lacaton has long championed the adaptive reuse of existing buildings as a tool for social change. For this mentorship, Aprahamian worked on a research project to adapt a former retirement home in Bourj Hammoud that, due to Lebanon’s financial collapse, is now about 80 per cent abandoned. “It’s in a very sad state,” says Aprahamian. “But it’s a big building with a lot of rooms and a big internal courtyard that’s extremely lush and green, which is something that’s very rare in this neighbourhood. So, this project is about exploring how to turn this building into something that could serve the community again. It’s such a missed opportunity, but to me it’s such an obvious opportunity.”