IJUP08 - Universidade do Porto

Exhibiting Architecture in Portuguese. Curatorial activity in
Portugal pre- Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa
Mariana Pestana 1
1 Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal.
Despite the increase in architecture exhibitions over the last years, and the granted power
of architecture exhibitions as definers of concepts and movements, little research has been
done on this theme in Portugal.
It seemed to me then relevant to study architecture exhibiting in Portugal. Its
contemporaneousness, allied to the fact that it represents a “compilation” of architecture
exhibitions in Portuguese, made the first Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa my chosen case
study. Defining the role of the curator, the contribution of exhibitions to Architecture and
the communication for different audiences were the main questions raised. I interviewed
people related to this activity in Portugal, researched in archives and libraries, and worked
as a volunteer at the Trienal. With the gathered information I assembled an analysis board
where the Portuguese curatorial activity until Trienal was arranged.
The act of displaying is present in occidental society, associated with processes of identity
construction, historical narratives and collective memory. Within these exercises, the
curator’s importance stands out. And what about the architecture display in particular?
The curator presents a partial version of reality, situated in a specific time and space.
Architecture’s immobile nature means that its representation in exhibition is achieved with
its content absent. The curator’s performance, as mediator between public and content
plays, then, there, an especially determining role.
Exhibition, as part of Architecture, has had a fundamental role in its fashions’ and
tendencies’ conceptual clarification. From laboratory to critical activity stage, the role of
the exhibition may be experimentation, social intervention or education, among others.
Architecture is represented through a codified language. Public accessibility to its contents
becomes an inevitable question that raises questions about the pertinence of displaying
conventional representative elements. The approximation to reality is not necessarily an
objective. Architecture’s multiple dimensions - beyond mere built object, as a social
interface element, for example, as well as its everyday presence as component of life, do
give it countless directions in which to approach an exhibition.
Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa opened a regular space for architecture presentation
through different forms, among them exhibition. The 2007 event was organised starting
with a team of curators, who were given the responsibility of “putting Portugal on the
architectural map”. The curatorship of architecture’s does exist in Portugal. Therefore I
believe it must be debated and discussed. It is important to understand what its objectives
are, its specificities, and, of course, it must be practised - for and as Portuguese
architecture. To discuss exhibitions’ contribution to architecture and to analyse
communication with different audiences are questions that I will approach.
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