Archinect - News

Kengo Kuma completes Lisbon art center with sweeping canopy

2024-09-25T07:30:00-04:00

Kengo Kuma and Associates has completed an overhaul of the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM) in Lisbon, marking the acclaimed architect’s first completed project in Portugal. Delivered in collaboration with OODA (Oporto Office for Design and Architecture), the scheme draws inspiration from the Engawa, a sheltered walkway typical of Japanese dwellings.

Image credit: Fernando Guerra, Canon Ambassador

The original CAM center was designed by British architect Sir Leslie Martin and opened in 1983, housing one of the world’s most significant collections of modern and contemporary Portuguese art. The center sits within the wider grounds of Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, a multi-disciplinary campus of 1960’s buildings in an 18-acre woodland.

Image credit: Fernando Guerra, Canon Ambassador

Kuma’s new iteration of the center is defined by a 330-foot-long sweeping timber canopy. The canopy was in...

Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Portugal reopens with new SO-IL-designed architectural intervention and exhibition

2020-06-15T11:30:00-04:00

After a delayed opening originally scheduled for March 27th, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (maat) has begun its new chapter with a museum-wide architectural intervention designed by New York-based studio SO - IL.

Titled Beeline, the project is an ephemeral work that transforms the Amanda Levete-designed building into a series of spatial encounters that take guests through elevated pathways, stage areas, and workshop zones. "This not only transforms the way visitors enter and experience maat, but also challenges the implied hierarchies of spaces in a traditional museum and provide flexibility for an ever-evolving organization," said SO - IL co-founder Florian Idenburg in a statement.

The design studio also designed an exhibition for the museum called Currents - Temporary Architectures, in which the practice displays 12 projects it has created over the past decade, exploring both temporary and built works. The exhibit includes 1:1 mock-ups, ephemera, models, and books...

AL_A-designed Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) opens in Lisbon

2016-10-04T19:49:00-04:00

Lisbon's new Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology officially opens October 5, spread across two structures: the renovated interior of a former power station, and a new kunsthalle designed by AL_A.

The MAAT was founded by the EDP Foundation, a private Portuguese organization primarily focused on energy and environmental concerns, and their extension into society and culture. MATT's construction extends EDP's preexisting art campus on the banks of Lisbon's Tagus River, and is part of an ongoing urban revitalization project along the historic waterfront, which includes Vittorio Gregotti’s Cultural Centre of Belém and Paolo Mendez de Rocha’s Coach Museum. Materially, the building is also meant to directly reference its site's craft tradition, made of 15,000 three-dimensional ceramic tiles.

AL_A's design for the MAAT includes a massive, low-slung roof that extends into the public space—allowing visitors to walk over and under it—intending to bridge the waterfront and the city. The m...

Pedro Gadanho leaves MoMA to become first artistic director of Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon

2015-07-06T19:08:00-04:00

The new Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon recently selected architect and writer Pedro Gadanho as its first Artistic Director. Gadanho is leaving his post as a curator in MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design, which he's held since 2012 – a relatively quick departure for such a high-status role. He will start at MAAT in October of this year, working to define the museum's cultural program, which aims to be "an exciting contemporary programme at the intersection of art, architecture and technology."

At MoMA, Gadanho worked alongside Senior Curators Martino Stierli (current) and Barry Bergdoll (former) as MoMA put out exhibitions like Tactical Urbanisms. He is already a respected entity in Portugal, having curated the Portugal Pavilion for the 2004 Venice Biennale, as well as numerous other local exhibitions. He holds an architecture degree and a PhD in Architecture and Mass Media from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP), as we...

"An Angry Passion": Round-Up of Global Tributes to Charles Correa

2015-06-18T13:31:00-04:00

Although memorial tributes are rarely upbeat, an unusual tenor of melancholy pervades the world's reaction to Charles Correa's death late Tuesday at age 84. The architect named "India's Greatest" by RIBA in 2013 has, in his passing, seemingly become an emblem of an entire subcontinent's struggles as much as the "open-to-sky" spaces which he leaves behind. In a tribute titled "Charles Correa wanted to design a better Mumbai – but the city let him down" in The Guardian, Bachi Karkaria portrays Correa as a visionary who was forever denied the recognition he deserved by Mumbai. "Correa’s real passion was the designing of cities that are easy to live, work, play – and commute – in. But his karma was Mumbai, which can check none of these boxes with a straight face," Karkaria writes. "The man who described cities as “places of hope” was fated to live in a city of disappointments. It’s not just because its skyline resembles an alarming ECG. More specifically, Mumbai mindlessly sabotaged two...

Artist VHILS dissects the city by by taking apart and reassembling found objects

2014-10-15T11:37:00-04:00

Throughout the past decade, Portuguese artist VHILS – born Alexandre Farto [Lisbon, 1987] – has been making a name for himself by taking apart and reassembling found objects. He uses a multitude of materials and formats to voice his stance on the city, which he bases on his experience of living and working in Shanghai 上海, Moscow, New York, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Paris. VHILS now condenses his findings in his home town Lisbon - in an exhibition at Lisbon’s Electricity Museum – curated by João Pinharanda and aptly named ‘Dissection’ – drawing from his work to produce a collective memory of the city. It is the artist’s first big solo show. MovingCities published, in the October-November 2014 issue of Mark magazine #52, an interview with Portuguese street artist: read VHILS | Dissecting the City.

Extract from VHILS | Dissecting the City:

'Debris is a prime material for me,’ he says. ‘I like to use material that has been expelled from the city. I think this comes from my background in ...

Álvaro Siza donates his architectural archives to institutions in Portugal and Canada

2014-07-24T18:53:00-04:00

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza this week announced to donate his architectural archive to public architectural institutions in Portugal and Canada. The decision was motivated by Siza's desire of fostering discussion and dialogue in a research-oriented context.

One part of the archive will be donated to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, and the other part will be given to two Portuguese institutions, the Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon and the Fundação de Serralves in Porto.

“The CCA is thrilled to accept this generous donation," remarked CCA Director Mirko Zardini. "I have known Álvaro Siza and followed his work closely for several decades. His architecture escapes easy classification, but always offers a lesson – a new way of seeing the world around us. His buildings have a distinct character and particular relationship to their urban or natural settings, always born from the desire to participate in the world. Siza’s drawings and sketches reflect his ability to...

Kenneth Frampton to receive Lisbon Triennale Lifetime Achievement Award 2013

2013-12-18T18:43:00-05:00

Architecture critic, historian, and professor Kenneth Frampton was named as the 2013 laureate for the Lisbon Triennale Lifetime Achievement Award on Dec. 15.

The award recognizes a person or practice whose work and ideas have had a lasting influence on architectural theory and practice today. This year, the Lisbon Architecture Triennale commissioned Portuguese artist Fernanda Fragateiro to design the prize.

Frampton will accept the award at a ceremony taking place at Lisbon’s Centro Cultural de Belém in early January 2014. He will also give a featured lecture at the event.

"The jury composed by Beatrice Galilee, Gonçalo Byrne, Guilherme Wisnik, Juhani Pallasmaa, Mónica Gili, Taro Igarashi and William Menking chose Kenneth Frampton for his outstanding contribution to architectural theorization and critical reflection, both as as lecturer and author of countless articles, essays and monographs.

A graduate of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, Ke...

Dispatches from 5468796 Architecture's Table for Twelve | Lisbon

2013-11-04T11:04:00-05:00

Archinect is delighted to present 5468796 Architecture's travelogue for their award-winning research project, Table for Twelve. The Winnipeg-based firm received the 2013 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture from the Canada Council for the Arts, awarded to emerging Canadian architects with outstanding artistic potential. The $50,000 prize will support the firm’s worldwide travels to both strengthen their skills and expand their presence within the international architectural community.

5468796’s Table for Twelve will hold dinner parties at architectural epicenters around the world, in the hopes that picking the brains of local talent will help them identify the drivers behind a strong design culture. Archinect plays host to their global dispatches through this travel blog, updated upon each city’s dinner.

From 5468796:

DINNER

The first installment of the “Table” in our year-long research project was held in Portugal during the opening week of the Lisbon Architecture Tr...

Jimenez Lai wins the inaugural Lisbon Triennale Millennium BCP Début Award

2013-09-13T14:56:00-04:00

Jimenez Lai continues to take the world by storm: the founder of Chicago-based Bureau Spectacular was announced last night as the winner of the first Lisbon Triennale Millennium BCP Début Award for architects under 35. The announcement took place at Lisbon’s Electricity Museum marking the first day of the opening week of Close, Closer, the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale.

Reality Check at Arquiteturas Film Festival Lisboa

2013-09-01T19:37:00-04:00

In 2012, filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story.

"Reality Check" by Leon Gerskovic and including time-lapse photography from Jeff Goldberg has been selected for inclusion in the Arquiteturas Film Festival Lisboa and will make its European Premiere on Friday September 27th at 6PM in the Cinema City Alvalade. The screening will be followed by a talk about "designing for the 99%" with Tiago Mota Saraiva of Ateliermob and a moderated discussion including Marie and Keith Zawistowski of design/buildLAB.

More about the film, including a trailer, clips, stills, and reviews by: Scott Poole, Dean at UTK; Jeff Day, Partner at Min Day and Director at UNL; and John Cary, Founder at Public Interest Design can be found at www.realitycheckfilm.com

More information about the festival can be found at www.doyoumeanarchitecture.com

“Working with the 99%” Wins a Future Cities Prize in Venice

2012-08-31T19:13:00-04:00

Three winning projects were announced in the Future Cities, Planning for the 90 per cent competition: ateliermob (Portugal), Municipal Housing Secretariat of São Paulo (Brazil), and Interazioni Urbane (Italy). The projects are part of the exhibition Future Cities: Planning for the 90 per cent in Venice during the 13th Architecture Biennale. Ten projects were selected for the exhibition from more than 100 participants from several countries.

Portuguese practice ateliermob presents one of the three winning projects, "Working with the 99%," a case study of the progress and community work of Lisbon's self-built PRODAC neighborhood.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.