Terra

Curatorial team 
Chief curators Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay lead the exhibition curators Anastassia Smirnova, José Pablo Ambrosi and Loreta Castro Reguera, Pamela Prado and Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Tau Tavengwa and Vyjayanthi Rao.

Terra is the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2022. With different meanings, depending on the scale and the observer, “Terra” expresses territory, city, landscape, the place where we belong or a continent seen from the sea. It may be a habitable planet or material for cultivation. It may be in excess or lacking, an obstacle or an element in the construction of communities.

As an international forum that fosters architectural thinking and practice, Terra incorporates a call to action and addresses how climate cha(lle)nges put pressure on resources, and how socioeconomic and environmental inequities are profoundly intertwined. Understanding these complex situations requires a paradigm shift from a linear growth model (cities as machines) to a circular evolutionary model (cities as organisms).

The Triennale 2022 brings out four interconnected exhibitions displaying diverse approaches, geographies and cultures. A vast programme orbits around them, where the launch of three open calls stands out.

Multiplicity examines how design and architecture adapt to a period marked by inequality, climate change, pandemics, as a call to redefine current canons, introducing practitioners and thinkers who redefine the scale of operation and methods necessary to tackle global challenges.

How you challenge the geopolitics of extractivism and the building industry is the question set forth in Cycles, acknowledging energy, water, human labour, and the carbon footprint originally embedded in the production of materials, towards sustainability, economy, heritage and memory.

Concurrently, Communal by Design suggests self-reflective retroactive infrastructures as the architect’s tool to approach the broken city, the deteriorated or underserved dwelling of one third of humanity, showing how to bring back spatial dignity and belonging through the design of public facilities. 

Connecting the dots between the other three themes, Visionaries plays with the notion that radical visions may become the new norm, through projects conceived by architects, urban planners, and other professionals, unveiling the stories of ideas and discerning the very process of materialising concepts.

Find more about the programme here. 

But there’s more to it than exhibitions—three open calls are being launched to aim for wider participation:

First up, we are looking for Independent Projects and self-financed proposals to be part of the programme. The events may range from exhibitions, installations, workshops or talks, to book launches, interventions in public spaces, cinema or music events to participate in a plural and lively discussion on the future of ecologies in architecture. Call open until November 1, 2021.

Next in line is the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Universities Award Competition Open Call, inviting universities worldwide in a cross-disciplinary perspective. The big news this year is the inclusion of research centres alongside master’s degrees. With four possible topics linked to the main exhibitions, the curatorial team will select the best proposals to integrate a cluster in each of them. Registration until November 15, 2021.

We round off the calls with the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Début Award Open Call to support new voices and new practices. The prize will hopefully contribute to the young professionals’ creative, intellectual and professional growth at a crucial stage in their career. The worldwide competition is open to architects under 35 or any architecture studio with an average age of under 35. Call open until February 28, 2022.

Learn all about the open calls here.

The Triennale 2022 is an open platform for the plurality of contemporary architectural thinking and practice. Jump in!