Trienal de Arquitetura de Lisboa: The Latest Architecture and News

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale announced as the winner of the fourth edition of the Début Award the São Paulo office Vão, formed by Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero. The office is known for a transdisciplinary practice that seeks to dilute the boundaries of the professional field in order to enhance architectural reflection. In previous editions, the award recognized the work of Bonell+Dòriga (Spain, 2019), Umwelt (Chile, 2016) and Jimenez Lai, from Bureau Spectacular (USA, 2013).

After two years of disrupted cycles of architecture events, due to the pandemic, 2022 has been witnessing a resurgence: biennials, triennials, design weeks, and festivals are back in the picture, with bigger interrogations and larger thematic approaches, aligned with the challenges of the world.

Relevant today more than ever, these happenings scattered around the globe are tackling climate-related issues, urban problems, as well as concerns engendered by covid-19 such as resilience, models of living, future of design, and the unknown.

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The Lisbon Architecture Triennale has released the list of finalists for the Millennium bcp Début Award. This year, ten offices from four continents reach the final stage of this award, which celebrates and encourages the creative, intellectual and professional growth of emerging talents at a crucial and transformative stage in their careers.

The list of finalists includes Atelier Tiago Antero – ATA (Portugal), Atelier Tropical – Valerie Mavoungou (Congo), Ben-Avid (Argentina), messina | rivas (Brazil), Nana Zaalishvili (Georgia), Rohan Chavan (India), Savinova Valeria (Russia), Spatial Anatomy (Singapore), vão (Brazil) and Vertebral (Mexico). The winner of the current edition will join a select list of winners that includes Bonell+Dòriga, from Spain (2019), Umwelt, from Chile (2016) and the American Jimenez Lai, from Bureau Spectacular (2013).

Architect, researcher and teacher Marina Tabassum was elected winner of the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Lifetime Achievement Award. Marina is the first person from the global south to receive the honor, joining Denise Scott-Brown from the USA (2019 winner), the French duo Lacaton & Vassal (2016), Kenneth Frampton from the UK (2013), Álvaro Siz from Portugal (2010) and Vittorio Gregotti from Italy (2007).

Selected the European Capital of Culture in 1994 and Ibero-American Capital of Culture 2017, Lisbon has been the destiny of tourists from many parts of the world over the past years. With thriving cultural programming, the city hosts important events related to art, music, movies and architecture. The Lisbon Architecture Trienniale and the Open House – event that coordinates free guided tours to remarkable buildings in cities around the world – are some of these relevant events in the architectural field, responsible to disseminate, discuss and reflect on issues of the area.

Besides programs related to architecture, in recent years, Lisbon has seen the emergence of new facilities, like museums, cultural centers and theaters, besides the requalification of public spaces. The construction or regeneration of these structures, directly or indirectly related to the cultural city movement, can be controversial, raising issues such as gentrification and the increase of mass tourism.

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The Lisbon Architecture Triennale has announced the appointed Chief Curators for their 6th edition, which will take place in 2022. The architects Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay were chosen given their great professional experience in the various aspects of the discipline that includes education, academic, and project activity in Portugal and abroad. The duo will be dedicating three years to preparing the Triennale 2022, beginning with an exploratory period for research, a team definition phase, a phase of structuring the programme design, ending with its implementation.

José Esparza Chong Cuy has been appointed as the new Executive Director and Chief Curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Following the departure of former director Eva Franch i Gilabert to London as the new Director of the Architectural Association, the extensive international search to fill her shoes began. An architect, curator, and writer, originally from Mexico, Esparza Chong Cuy was named and will assume the position starting November 1st.

Storefront, a non-profit organization based in New York City, engages in the advancement of design and architecture with interdisciplinary dialogue through exhibitions and projects that aim to transcend geographic and ideological boundaries. Charles Renfro, President of Storefront's Board of Directors, remarks, "We are thrilled to welcome José to the helm of Storefront, the very institution where he began his curatorial career over a decade ago."

The 2016 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, which opened last week, is comprised of a constellation of exhibitions and satellites. One such show—eponymously named The Form of Form—is both an exhibition and a structure in itself – a sequence of rooms designed collaboratively by Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee, Kersten Geers of Office KGDVS, and Nuno Brandão Costa. If "one of architecture’s fundamental legacies is its own form," the curatorial statement declares, "this exhibition [builds] a dialogue that challenges notions of authorship and the limits of form."

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