Our choice for the exhibition revisiting the architectural collections

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For 2021, the Lisbon Triennale will once again integrate the European Architecture Programme with an exhibition. Given the richness of the institutions’ collections that are part of the Future Architecture Platform, the Triennale chooses to bring a new look at these architecture collections, placing emerging talents in close dialogue with museums and foundations in Europe.

From the 27 shortlisted projects presented at the annual Creative Exchange 2021 convention, held online in February, the Triennale selected the curatorship and exhibition design of this original project as part of the Cultural Cluster’s programme based at the Palácio Sinel de Cordes. The project puts together Anna Ulrikke Andersen, a Norwegian architecture historian and filmmaker, and Paris-based L'Atelier Senzu, founded by Wandrille Marchais and David Dottelonde.

The exhibition commissioned, coordinated and produced by the Lisbon Triennale features carefully selected works in one or more collections from the seven platform members: MAO, MAXXI, S AM, Gulbenkian Foundation, Museum of Estonian Architecture, Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, Royal Academy of Arts. 

In the words of the curator Anna Ulrike Andersen, ‘The exhibition aims to revisit – and rethink – what the Future Architecture Collection may be. As we live longer, chronic illness and disabilities are becoming a greater part of our lives. The intention is to uncover a series of alternative and creative strategies we use to navigate in our built environment. Each room in Palácio Sinel de Cordes will unveil material from the various archives, which is re-framed by voices of people living with chronic illness that I have gathered in my work to date.’ It is our goal to bring to a wider audience works that might not have been shown in specific contexts and call attention to architecture collections. By involving emergent creatives we pursue to keep bringing a fresh and new way of approaching collections and showcase architecture. Between March and May, a stage of research and content selection begins, followed by the development of a set design proposal, scheduled for October to December 2021.

The Triennale has invested in the accessibility of contents, either through adapted visits in the context of Open House Lisboa, or with new editorial projects that will be launched in the last quarter of 2021. The pandemic highlighted the pressing need to think about the built environment and how we can devote more attention to making it more accessible and inclusive. This original content continues this mission.

This platform has managed to reveal, in a very plural and diverse way, emerging authors who work in the most varied geographies and fields, from research to teaching or practice. It is very gratifying to meet new voices of architecture and facilitate the exchange of a new generation of professionals. You can watch (again) the Creative Exchange presentations on the Future Architecture Rooms.

Biographies

Anna Ulrikke Andersen is a Norwegian architectural historian and filmmaker, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. She holds a PhD in architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture. In 2018/2019 she was a Fellow at Harvard Film Study Center, where she began exploring filmmaking, sculpture, and essay writing as methods to investigate architecture experienced by people living with chronic illness. In 2021 she was the recipient of the prestigious Work Grant for Young Artists from the Norwegian Arts Council. Her first book, Christian Norberg-Schulz: An Architectural History through the Essay Film, will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2022.

L’Atelier Senzu is a Paris-based architectural office, founded in 2014 by Wandrille Marchais and David Dottelonde. The studio explores different creation fields to imagine specific responses to today’s new challenges. The practice is combined with research, teaching and experiments. 

In 2019, the studio won the competition of the Transformation of the Chamber of Notaries, located in the Place du Châtelet in Paris, and the FAIRE 2020 call for projects, organised by the City of Paris and the Pavillon de l'Arsenal, for a study and an experiment on outdoor education. David Dottelonde and Wandrille Marchais won the ‘Albums des Jeunes Architectes et Paysagistes (AJAP)’ in 2021, an important biennial prize awarded by the French Minister of Culture.