The UHA team at MNAC
In October our Lisbon team, accompanied by Founding Director Jonas Upton-Hansen, visited the Multiplicity and Visionaries exhibitions of this year's Trienal de Lisboa. Exhibits spanned social intervention and public space, to utopic planetary strategies, based around the theme 'Terra'.
Co-curated by Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay, Terra spanned 5 exhibitions in 5 locations, and was a promulgation for cities-as-organisms.
The Bookworm Pavilion by Nudes
Across Multiplicity the team saw several different approaches to architectural practice in places with demanding social, economic, environmental and political conditions. These approaches, made with scarce means, challenge the way architects usually think about the profession. Many exhibits, like the Bookworm Pavilion, focused on social intervention in public spaces. Designed by Nudes in 2019 to take on illiteracy in India, the Pavilion was particularly exciting to see as it was worked on by UHA alumnus Dhruval Shah.
Lodgers by Zhicheng Xu and Mengqi Moon He
In contrast, Visionaries focused on projects with a more utopian feel to them. MVRDV's Super St. Catherine imagines how elevating the cathedral by 55 metres would free up the ground beneath it. Artificial Terra by ORG addresses, "pressing environmental and social issues of our time" by imagining a series of man-made island systems of infrastructure that would encourage and protect marine ecosystems while providing renewable energy.
Super St. Catherine by MVRDV
Public Solitudes, or A Museum Visitor on Display (2022) by SVESMI with Marina Loshak
Artificial Terra by ORG
