Summer School designs educational activities

The five projects we selected in Ljubljana are now part of a mediation programme carried out by our Educational Service. Its development starts with a summer school, including a creative residency that gathered the emergent researchers and architects at the Sinel de Cordes Palace, between 15 and 20 May, 2019. Mission: design pedagogical activities to be part of each of the five main exhibitions of Triennale 2019.

In order to guide the respective creative process and based in the assessment we made of the ideas and competences reflected in each project, we determined the themes and target audience each should focus on. Those selected presented solutions that were relevant to the 5th edition’s debate, meeting the challenge launched by the Triennale.

F.A.T. – Forum for Architecture Theory, composed of Fábio Don and Marco Zelli, two Italian architects based in Zürich, propose a public forum to discuss subjects fundamental to architecture, based on the reflection suggested by the Economy of Means exhibition . This forum intends to empower young architecture professionals and students through their direct participation.

Looking at the city’s patrimony and memories, Spanish architect Júlio Gotor Valcárcel will design an activity with four components, using dreamlike worlds of multiple layers. Valcárcel renderizes his ideas in a unique fashion, blending ambient and technical representation of construction to create tools that mediate the theme of constructive rationality, inspired by the Natural Beauty exhibition. He was one of the winners of the 2018 Young Talent Architecture Award.

The work of Klodiana Millona, Albanian architect and researcher, meets the theme of Triennale 2019, namely in the reuse of structures and investigation of the commons. Experienced in educational activities with local communities, regarding education towards architecture and the territory, she creates a bridge with Agriculture and Architecture: Taking the Country’s Side.

Meticulously, Italian researcher and designer Ludovica Guarnieri focuses on contradictory issues of power, meanings and ideologies related to architecture. She proposes a performance inspired on the subjects of the Inner Space exhibition, based on an holistic world view and a multidisciplinary approach.

What is Ornanment? is the exhibition focused on by Belgian activist faction composed of Léone Drapeaud, Manuel Leon Fanjul and Johnny Leya – Traumnovelle. This collective offers a provocative critique about contemporary spatial issues, through intense fictional and predictive narratives looking at two sides of a present/future while deconstructing codes of society and civilization.

Part of a fruitful international cultural exchange programme, their participation in the Summer School comprises four stages. The first stage, which contextualizes each of the main exhibitions of The Poetics of Reason, allowed for the development of a proposal of activities based on preliminary research.

The second stage consisted of the six-day residency, focusing on the development of the more mature ideas that the creatives brought along. Based at the Sinel de Cordes Palace, they were part of a vast work plan that was composed of debates, roundtables, several external guests and parallel activities, complementary to the work sessions.

On the first day, 15 May, we welcomed the participants providing them a guided tour of the palace, by Manuel Henriques, our Executive Deputy Director, and to the Visionary Architecture exhibition, by Antonia Gaeta, the curator. This was followed by a presentation of the work developed by each project, determining the next steps. The day ended with a well-deserved welcome drink at Miradouro da Graça.

The following day, a review session of all proposals took place, implementation methodologies were set and synergies were made, involving the educational services of the institutions hosting the main exhibitions. In the afternoon, the five work groups visited the venues, taking advantage of the input of several experts in the fields of history and philosophy, among other.

On Friday, they continued working through meetings with the collectives part of the ROCK project or HEY! Imaginable Guidelines, Horta FCUL/PermaLAB, Art for Adaptation, and more. The day ended with a get-together dinner at Cozinha Popular da Mouraria.

Saturday had a more informal agenda and the group was able to relax with visits to Casa da Cerca, in Almada, and exhibitions of artist Rui Chafes and architecture atelier FALA.

On the penultimate day, individual work sessions took place and, on the last day, the results were presented.

The farewell marked the beginning of the third and fourth stages, respectively the production of the educational activities whose design started in the creative residency and their implementation into Triennale 2019 . If you are curious – as we are –, you can soon find out more at our website.

To all those who have contributed to this Summer School: a big thank you.