«In Conflict Vol. 1», published by Circo de Ideias and edited by depA architects, Carlos Azevedo, João Crisóstomo, Luís Sobral, and Miguel Santos, presents the research conducted for the Portuguese representation at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. The book responds to the question posed by Hashim Sarkis, general curator of the 2021 Biennale Architettura: ‘How will we live together?’, by revisiting a selection of Portuguese architectural processes in democracy, shaped by broad public debate between political power, the press, and civil society.
The city and the territory are collective constructions where dissent shapes architectural production. Through the exhibition and a cycle of nine debates, In Conflict considers the role of architecture as a public, political, and ethical discipline, with the expectation of fulfilling a shared future. This book, the first volume of a two-part catalog, portrays the exhibition held on the main floor of the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin. Just as throughout the rooms of the Palazzo, these pages revisit seven living processes of Portuguese architecture that address the issue of housing. Each chapter, presented chronologically, unfolds in four acts. First, a three-dimensional piece introduces each process, courtesy of the architects invited to revisit these housing projects. Photographs of these exhibited objects are accompanied by a short, previously unpublished memoir that synthesizes the authors' critical perspective on the works.
Subsequently, a selection of newspaper pages referring to these projects documents the involvement of political power, the press, and civil society over time. In the third act, the architectural projects that embody these processes are presented through conventional pieces (drawings, sketches, model photographs, construction and final photographs). These are preceded by a cross-dialogue between the curatorial team and the works, some of their authors, their inhabitants, and other protagonists.
These notes, now shared, are the result of a two-year journey through Portugal, generously accompanied by all the interlocutors, which was fundamental to the realization of this project. This catalog is an atlas of what has been done and what remains to be done in this ‘living together’ inaugurated with the 25th of April. The reflections contained herein mirror a subjective reading that attempts to put other ways of looking at persistent problems in the history of recent Portuguese architecture and future global-scale challenges on the table.
