Category: Architecture

Towards a New Avant-Garde


Towards a New Avant-Garde. Photo by Alicja Dobrucka

I’m proud to announce Towards a New Avant-Garde, a three-part event series that will take place on the first weekend of the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale! Within the Monditalia exhibition at the Arsenale, the events will trace parallels between distinct generations, seeking to understand what lessons can still be learned from the Italian architectural impulses of the 60s and 70s, and how they can be best  applied by the newest generation of architects in Italy and abroad. Lead by Superscript, the event is a collaborative effort with author and scholar Catharine Rossi and researcher and scholar Rossella Ferorelli, and the design team includes architects DEVspace and interaction designer Thibault Brevet. More info over at the Superscript blog— see you in Venice, and #stayradical!


Tanto Mar


With Shumi Bose, Ethel Baraona Pohl and Tiago Mota Saraiva at the Tanto Mar roundtables. Photo by Tanto Mar.

Last December marked the public presentation and discussion of the Tanto Mar project, an excellent initiative of Lisbon-based architecture studio ateliermob. They propose to map and register the work of Portuguese architects outside of Portugal, reuniting their work in an exhibition in Lisbon’s CCB cultural centre. The project launched an open call to Portuguese architects abroad, and invited critics, curators and architects to discuss the submissions in two open roundtables. I was happy to take part in the international roundtable last 13 December, alongside Blueprint magazine’s Shumi Bose, dpr.barcelona’s Ethel Baraona Pohl, and ateliermob’s Tiago Mota Saraiva. The discussion was enlivened by the audience and a few agents provocateurs – Fredy Massad, Anna Buono and Cesar Najera Reyes – and a series of important trends and topics soon emerged. Alongside the results of the Portuguese roundtable that was held the previous days, these will inform and shape the curatorial process that will then materialize in an exhibition, which will open in Spring 2014. Thanks to ateliermob for the invitation and for having me! It was a pleasure to take part in the discussion and I look forward to see what the exhibition will bring.

An afternoon at Close, Closer


Post World’s End Architecture at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Photo Valerie Bennett/AA

By initiative of Gonzalo Herrero Delicado and in association with Blueprint magazine,  the Post World’s End Architecture series became an event during the opening week of Close, Closer, the 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennale. Unfortunaly, Gonzalo couldn’t make it– and therefore Blueprint magazine’s Shumi Bose and I led the event in the courtyard of the Triennale HQ, during a wonderful sunny afternoon. The informal but energetic discussion was a fantastic opportunity to hear from Portuguese and Spanish practitioners — including dpr barcelona, O Espelho, Ateliermob, Polígono, blaanc, Artéria, Inês Moreira, Paulo Moreira and many others. Their passionate and unromantic debate described both the practical and moral predicaments of working in architecture today, and of maintaining civic and social principles under financial constraints. Thank you to all the participants for such fantastic contributions to the discussion, and thanks to the Lisbon Architecture Triennale for having us!

Post World’s End Architecture: Italy and Portugal


ateliermob’s Open-Air Theatre in Rio de Moinhos. Photo by Zoraima de Figueiredo

Following the invitation of Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, I had the opportunity to further delve on my research on contemporary architecture in crisis contexts. This time, focusing on the south of Europe, for Blueprint magazine’s “Post-World’s End Architecture” Series. Together, we researched and analyzed the context in Portugal and Italy, while Gonzalo devoted himself to a full-on immersion in Spain and Greece. The result is a four-part series of articles that saw the light during 2013, and offer a comprehensive analysis of the contemporary architecture scene — in its many layers — in the crisis-ridden European south.

“Post-World’s End Architecture: Portugal” can be read in its entirety at Design Curial — and an excerpt can be found after the jump.

Continue reading Post World’s End Architecture: Italy and Portugal

Farewell to Domus


Domus July/August 2013. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani

The July/August 2013 issue of Domus marks my departure from the magazine, after a year and a half of intense learning and a lot of fun. It was an honour, a challenge, and an immense pleasure to work under editor-in-chief Joseph Grima and the Domus editorial team — among which Marco Ferrari and Fabrizia Vecchione—, creating a magazine and a website that truly captured the contemporary.

Personally, this period marks my most intense professional growth thus far, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity. For the moment, find all my collected writings at Domusweb here. And now, on to the next challenge!

We don’t always need to build


Polígono at work. Photo by Francisco Bahia Nogueira

The July/August 2013 issue of Domus features a story which I was thrilled to research and write, on small-scale interventions by emerging Portuguese architecture practices. For me, it was a bit like coming home – and simultaneously, it was one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in the year. It was a pleasure to speak to the people behind ateliermob, Polígono, Arrebita!Porto, Artéria, Casa do Vapor and LIKEArchitects, and understand what drives and moves them.

This issue of Domus is a special one, too. It is the last under editor-in-chief Joseph Grima, and brilliantly combines all the themes that marked his period in the magazine – a period that suceeded to truly capture the contemporary. The volume marks his departure from the magazine – and mine –, and heralds the beginning of new projects and adventures.

The full piece can be read after the jump.

Continue reading We don’t always need to build

Writing = weapon


One of the slides in my Pecha Kucha presentation, reading “Writing = weapon”.

During my last visit to Lisbon, I was happy to participate in the 18th edition of Pecha Kucha Night Lisbon, where I talked about my writing and work. This was the first time I presented in an open event in Portugal (my home country), and it offered a good opportunity to reflect on everything I’ve been doing in the last few years — happy to say it’s been a lot.

The presentation was also a moment for me to advocate the use of writing as a weapon of agency and power — ultimately, I began writing (back in 2003) because I was frustrated with the state of cultural critique in Portugal — and to discuss the work of a series of Portuguese architecture studios, who together form a potential new avant-garde in the country, in a moment of crisis and exception.

On Display: The Future of Museums


The Superscript wall at New York’s MAD after the third On Display event. Photo by Aileen Kwun

As part of the MAD museum’s The Home Front 2013: After the Museum exhibition and series of events, editorial consultancy Superscript (which I co-founded) alongside HAO and Neil Donnelly proposed a series of panel discussions titled On Display. In each of the events, a simple starting point was used to discuss issues around objects, exhibitions and location in the future of museums. While discussion progressed, a wall in the exhibition gallery was transformed with live inputs from the discussion, such as images, quotes from readings, or comments by participants in the discussion. The results of the three events will be compiled soon in a publication.

I was fortunate to participate in one of the discussions on the occasion of my last trip to New York. On Display #3 focused on location, and started with the location of MAD — 2 Columbus Circle — to then question physical and virtual locations of museums, collections and galleries today and in the future. For me, it felt just like coming home — so many friendly faces! —, and it was a pleasure to participate in a discussion expertly led by Molly Heintz and Avinash Rajagopal.

The Collective Story


Unfold’s Stratigraphic Manufactury, part of Adhocracy. Photo by Benoit Palley

In order to celebrate the opening of Adhocracy at the New Museum, in New York, below is the essay Avinash Rajagopal and I wrote for the exhibition’s catalog, introducing the volume’s intentions and structure. The catalog is available at the New Museum store. Make sure to visit the show, which will be on through 7 July at Studio 231 at 231 Bowery.

The Collective Story
Avinash Rajagopal, Vera Sacchetti

At first glance, what does a film about superannuated gardeners in Barcelona have to do with 3-D printed ceramics from Antwerp, or an open-source tractor built on a farm in Missouri? The many manifestations of adhocracy—the conviction that societal change can come out of small interventions, little subversions, and closely-knit communities working without the aid of the powers-that-be—can be surprisingly, and affirmingly, diverse. If only all these local agents who create tirelessly within their own online and offline communities could speak to each other, then a powerful new mode of creativity could take over the world—or at least that is the dream.

Continue reading The Collective Story

The Adhocracy Reader


The Adhocracy Reader, page detail. Photo by Ethel Baraona Pohl

During the summer of 2012 I was lucky enough to be involved in the preparation of Adhocracy, an exhibition curated by Joseph Grima with Elian Stefa, Ethel Baraona Pohl and Pelin Tan for the 1st Istanbul Design Biennial. My collaboration with the team materialized in the exhibition catalog, which I co-edited with Avinash Rajagopal and Tamar Shafrir. The Adhocracy Reader was designed by Folder (Marco Ferrari and Elisa Pasqual), and in its 400 pages we tried to push the concept of a standard catalog and create a reader, evoking a standard college reader — a compilation of pre-published material. A series of introductory essays frame the exhibition’s premises and the catalog’s intentions, followed by a carefully curated selection of material on the projects on display in the exhibition, alongside a series of pre-existing essays. The whole catalog can be consulted on Issuu, and a Flickr photoset by Ethel Baraona Pohl can be seen here.

Concrete Mushrooms


Concrete Mushrooms. Photo by dpr.barcelona

During June and July 2012, I copy-edited and helped Elian Stefa finish the book Concrete Mushrooms: Reusing Albania’s 750,000 Abandoned Bunkers, which was then published by dpr.barcelona in August 2012. The book, in Albanian and English, traces the history and fascinating “bunkerization” of Albania during the last years of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, and proposes a series of uses for these now discarded military structures. The project was originally started as a research project at the Politecnico di Milano. In August 2012, Concrete Mushrooms was also one of the initiators of Concrete in Common, an exhibition at  the Kunst Raum Riehen, in Basel, Switzerland — which I reviewed for Domusweb —, and was presented as one of the projects in the Albanian Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition — Venice Biennale 2012.

Souto de Moura: a commentary and interview


Braga Municipal Stadium, Souto de Moura Arquitectos. Photo: Luis Ferreira Alves

More on the Souto the Moura front: my commentary on the Portuguese Pritzker, as well as an exclusive interview, are now up on The Architect’s Newspaper. It was a pleasure writing a bit more about this Portuguese architect, whose work I like so much. It was great to interview him, too. A small excerpt here,

Your work is full of quotations of work you admire: the Corbusier-type window in your House in Maia, the Xenakis-imposed rhythm in the House in Barrocal, and Mies in the Burgo Office tower, this last one an homage…

The Burgo Tower is not an homage. I quote, because those who cannot write quote. What I don’t want is to start from scratch, which is a waste of time and a sign of little intelligence. If there is a set of circumstances to which architects have answered in a way I admire, I would like to use it, because this is part of the continuity that architecture needs. Architecture is a continuous story. I’m not going to invent a brick angle if Mies already did it in the Dominion Center, but what I can do is to re-think or re-draw it. But I always start from a concrete thing. To start from scratch leads to two things: either it’s stupid, or it leads to an excessive creativity that architecture doesn’t need.

And the full commentary and interview at The Architect’s Newspaper site & April 20th print edition.

An unexpected Pritzker


Casa das Artes, by Souto de Moura Arquitectos. Photo by Luis Ferreira Alves

With Eduardo Souto Moura’s surprising Pritzker win, I contributed a small post for the Metropolis blog trying to bring the architect’s work into context. Truth is, I really like his work, and lived around it for five years while in college. Here’s an excerpt:

In Porto, Portugal, where Souto Moura—we usually drop the “de”—has lived, taught and worked for the last thirty years, the architect is quite a celebrity. The northern part of Portugal is where you can find most of his strongest body of work—his houses. With each single family dwelling, Souto Moura has refined a style that is rigorous, grounded and muscular; minimal—the influence of both Mies and Siza are felt—but detailed in the way the volume is inserted into the landscape and the space unfolds within.

Read more over at the Metropolis Blog.