In their latest editions, from the Venice Biennale to the Ibero-American Biennale, the great architecture meetings have become crushers of architectural stereotypes, in which very little remains of the old cliches that built the profession of architect until recently. of a decade.
The Lisbon Triennale, in its sixth edition curated by Cristina Verissimo and Diogo Burnay, also includes this critical trend, and sometimes excessively redemptive, in which it nevertheless differentiates itself by providing avenues of illusion, utopias and optimism with interesting propositional experiences such as the exhibition
«Visionarias» in
Culturgest.
The exhibition, one of the four that make up the main body of the Triennale, has been curated by
Anastassia Smirnova with
SVESMI and designed by the “
Bureau” studio
With a certain degree of necessary ingenuity and also of recovery to excite, to insufflate spirit, the exhibition proposes creative ideas in "Visionaries", in which it shows a group of proposals, many times raised by anonymous heroes for the general public, with some ideas they are little gems.
Composed of the different contributions, the exhibition is hidden behind a large and immense gray curtain (a good metaphor) in which the visitor has to discover each one of the rooms, opening and accessing each one of these enclosures of these visionary proposals.
«Visionaries» by Anastassia Smirnova with SVERMI / designed by Bureau. Trienal de Lisboa. Photograph by Sara Constanca.
The journey begins with a reflection on the green vertical walls to quickly move on to the proposal for Auroville, the city projected in situ, on completely virgin land in Tamil Nadu by Roger Anger (1923-2008), who left his studio in full swing professional and moved to India to respond to the call of Mirra Alfassa, a Franco-Indian guru who wanted to create from scratch a city where "individual value would take far greater importance than material wealth and social position." Next, the proposals of Anupama Kundoo and those of Dom Hans van der Laan are presented.
Driven by this attractive idea that any architect can be a potential hero, the “
Visionaries” exhibition reveals its little treasures behind the curtain, ranging from the watercolors of Galina Balashova, "the woman who tamed the cosmos", as as presented in the poster, they are beautiful. During the 1960s, the experimental design office OKB1, a structure in charge of developing flying prototypes for the Soviet space program, commissioned this Russian architect to design the interiors of the first Soyuz station.
«Visionaries» by Anastassia Smirnova with SVERMI / designed by Bureau. Trienal de Lisboa. Photograph by José Juan Barba.
With Bashova, the suggestive spaces and dwellings of the Japanese Tomoaki Uno Architects and the cave dwelling of the Spanish Ensamble Studio (
"Back to the cave") are presented.
This first section of works and rooms (the exhibition has been designed following a "U" shape) takes us to one of the most interesting spaces, occupied in the first place by "The smallest housing unit" "The Smallest Living Unit" a proposal Bruno Munari's "Abitacolo" from 1971, which has been recovered and put back into production last year, accompanied by the staging of Mila Baumann (2022). Secondly, the always interesting Aristide Antonas stands out, with his manifesto «La Victoria de la cama / The Victory of the Bed» written on a long sheet suspended from the ceiling.
This second section is completed with Ultimate Compost Club and Green Nuefert's proposal, 2019-2022, the public toilets made in Tokyo for the celebration of the last Olympic Games.
«Visionaries» by Anastassia Smirnova with SVERMI / designed by Bureau. Trienal de Lisboa. Photograph by Sara Constanca.
The third section recovers the search behind the curtains and the first room under the idea of «On Stage» reflecting on the idea of the private and the public, shows the works of the Spaniards Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation with the project
"Hybrid Infrastructure: RUN RUN RUN, Madrid (2019), and Selgas Cano with
Second Home Hollywood Offices, LA (2019), accompanied by SVESMI with «Inhabiting a museum».
«Visionaries» by Anastassia Smirnova with SVERMI / designed by Bureau. Trienal de Lisboa. Photograph by José Juan Barba.
The last two rooms are dedicated to Terra Artificial, and the construction of new artificial islands, with different functions and as triggers for new responses of regeneration and transformation of our marine ecosystems in the face of climate change. The tour ends, without you realizing that you have reached the end, with reinterpretations, where the most contemporary proposals are presented, such as «Sublime beauty, Sublime Sustainability», Super St. Catherine by MVRDV.
A suggestive, attractive and intelligent tour, with which you feel your ideas boil and confirm that exciting idea of visionary heroes, which all architects have as potential in the transforming capacity of their work.
