Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016 THE FORM OF FORM exhibition @ MAAT – Photo ©Tiago Casanova, courtesy of Lisbon Architecture Triennale.

Lisbon 2016 – While buildings keep rising across the globe, cities and societies keep shapeshifting. Which is the impact of the architecture and building process on people’s lives? This is the main theme of the the 4th Lisbon Architecture Biennale that takes over the Portuguese capital until the 11th of December exploring the theme THE FORM OF FORM.

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©Tiago Casanova.

The FORM OF FORM issue investigates the development of the urban environment with four main exhibitions, satellite-events and associated projects but also talks, awards, competitions and more. “Architecture is a complex and articulated process but if you lose the process and only keep the form you lose the core of architectural practice” said André Tavares, co-curator of Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016 with the late Diogo Seixas Lopes.

©Tiago Casanova.

Form of Form central exhibition is located on the patio outside the newly inaugurated MAAT (Architecture, Art and Technology) Museum. Johnston Marklee, Nuno Brandão Costa, and Office KGDVS designed a contemporary castle made of different building materials. Visitors can explore twelve interlinked spaces inspired by examples of architectural designs by the studios.

“The Form of Form” main exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

Each of the spaces is designed to house content selected from the extensive database of Socks Studio, an online publication as well a as platform for speculation and discussion that was founded by Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli.

“The Form of Form” main exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

The selection ranges from Piranesi to contemporary projects. Sample of construction drawings, landscape interventions, urban plans, artistic investigation, and other elements on shoe highlight “the permanence of form and its capacity to condense a set of values into any visible thing”.

“The Form of Form” main exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

The Building Site main exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation focuses of how different dynamics effecting the construction site contribute to the the final architectural, human and social final result.

“The Building Site” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

“From the communication between design and construction, the organization of time and money, to the rhetoric of politics and technological innovations, all the cards for architecture-to-be are played on the building site.” Says curator André Tavares.

“The Building Site” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

On show entrepreneural strategies and reports aimed at improving work conditions on building sites but also perspectives on several building sites including OMA’s Casa da Musica and Neues Museum in Berlin by David Chipperfield Architects.

“The Building Site” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

Curated by FIG Projects, The World in Our Eyes main exhibition at the Centro Cultural de Belém Foundation focuses on architectural description. The selected projects are organized into six groupings, responding either to the methodology used or to the main object of description.

“The World in Our Eyes” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

“Description is a project. Architects have deployed a sophisticated arsenal of tools proper to their trade and have borrowed techniques and expertise from other disciplines to generate descriptions and analysis of the physical world” say Fabrizio Gallanti and Francesca Insulza at FIG Projects.

“The World in Our Eyes” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

The fourth main exhibition Sines: Seaside Logistics (Triennale HQs, Campo de Santa Clara 145) features 20 selected projects of 14 Portuguese schools and universities of architecture that developed future solutions and for large industrial harbor of the city of Sines.

“Sines: Seaside Logistics” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

“Sines: Seaside Logistics is an exhibition about the relationship between the city, its industrial and infrastructural elements, and landscape.” Say curators Marta Labastida and Rui Mendes.

“Sines: Seaside Logistics” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

Mythically intended to be the logistic hub of the whole Iberian Peninsula, Sines is a large harbor and industrial infrastructure built upon a former fishing village in the 1970s. “How can architecture intervene in the mechanical creation of logistic infrastructures? How can we approach issues such as shared uses and the borderline spaces between the city proper and the waterfront in a context dominated by large-scale infrastructures?

“Sines: Seaside Logistics” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale is a non-profit association whose mission is to examine, foster and promote architectural thinking and practice. In addition to its main forum every three years, the Triennale also organizes conferences and events all year round, one if them is the Open House Lisboa, an event that for one weekend each year opens the doors of the best architecture in the city.

“The Form of Form” main exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

All photos: courtesy of Lisbon Architecture Triennale.

“The World in Our Eyes” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.

“The Building Site” exhibition – ©Tiago Casanova.