The Institute Effect Workshop

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The Lisbon Architecture Triennale held, between 10 and 14 September, a workshop as part of the exhibition The Institute Effect alongside the third edition of the Close, Closer event. The premise of this exhibition, curated by Dani Admiss, was based on the idea that institutions are mediators of architectural practice and generators of its discourse. Magazines, newspapers, websites, galleries, project spaces, archives, libraries and museums all over the world place the practice of the discipline, commission and write its future history, are undoubtedly as influential in the current panorama as the authors who give it its name, the architects.

This initiative was coordinated by Sam Baron and led by Fabrica, Benetton's Italian creative centre created in 1994 by Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani, in a space of architecture rehabilitated by Tadao Ando. A Renaissance inspired approach that privileges learning by doing, where creative talents under 25 from all over the world experience contemporary communication through a constant contamination between different disciplines, such as photography, video, graphics, design, music and digital. Fabrica also organizes a program of workshops, lectures and training experiences where the worlds of art, culture and research meet to develop new ideas. Architects, musicians, historians, designers, artists, interaction designers, art directors and internationally renowned sociologists collaborate with this institution.

Set up design conceived by Fabrica ©GonçaloFonseca

In Portugal, the workshop Institute Effect involved students from different Portuguese schools, in a call to all young people up to the age of 25, working in the areas of communication, product and industrial design. An unprecedented action that contributed to the creation of the exhibition design of this central exhibition of the Triennale 2013, developing elements such as furniture and visual identity for a fictitious institute, in a laboratory in real time. The involvement of the school community was praised and an added value, as one of the participants told us:

"This workshop allowed, for the first time during college, to have the opportunity to enter a graphic design project for the cultural area and have my work exposed. I had contact with the design team of the factory but also with the "client" the team of the institution I chose to work with, the Z33. The Fabrica team accompanied us through the creative process, contributing with their own ways of doing, opening the way to create new creative processes but also to know how to put their hands to work. In the end the result exceeded my expectations, and helped define what I wanted to explore during and after college". - Raquel Guerreiro.

Farbica Workshop at The Institute Effect, Triennale 2013 © Luke Hayes

With free registration, the workshop took place at MUDE - Museu de Design e da Moda, and was led by an international team of designers from the Factory. A way of exploring new forms of pedagogy in a workshop of intensive participation. Assuming itself as a work-in-progress exhibition, visitors were given the opportunity to participate in various activities, and this workshop was the starting point. During the opening period, eleven institutes were set up at MUDE to develop contents that integrated the exhibition, from September 11th to December 1st 2013, among which Fabrica (Italy), Storefront for Art and Architecture (USA), the Institut für Raumexperimente (Germany), the Strelka Institute (Russia), the Spatial Agency project (UK), SALT (Turkey), Urban Think Thank (USA), the Center for Urban Pedagogy (USA), Z33 (Belgium), Liga (Mexico), Design as Politics (Germany) and Jornal Arquitectos (Portugal).

Each guest has a challenge and an experience, from visiting a 1:1 scale reimagined construction of a Mexican architecture gallery, to producing an editorial experience or exploring Lisbon through a series of alternative interventions throughout the city.