International Summer Seminar

Fertile Futures, the official Portuguese representation at the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale, took seventy students from all over the world to Fundão for two weeks, to consider the future of the area threatened by the shortage of fresh water.

Over the course of fifteen days in July, the International Summer Seminar held numerous field visits, conferences and workshops, and produced installations throughout the territory of Fundão. The Seminar involved seventy students from national and international universities—from Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Chile, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, among others—the seven architectural teams that presented their projects in Venice, and various partners and local people.

Fundão is one of the eight Portuguese cities included in the European Union Mission for adaptation to climate change and is deeply affected by water scarcity and highly intensive agriculture, fires and desertification. It is also representative of strong investments in social inclusion and technological expansion in the interior of the country, thus becoming the focus of the debate and the stage of the work laboratories. 

The proposals presented in the framework of the International Summer Seminar by the different teams resulted in joint exercises and diverse solutions, and sought to reflect on the significant role of architecture in collaborative thinking and in the construction of fertile futures.

Architectural sculpture as landscape construction was the proposal presented by the Corpo Atelier workshop. “Beatriz” is the name attributed to the straw stairs, located on the fluvial island of Janeiro de Cima, which are symbolically an intermediary between the human being and the way of seeing the world, between the immediate and the imaginary landscape, suggesting one that is not visible still exists.

Based on the observation of the “complete path” of the movement of a water line, Dulcineia Santos Studio group developed the workshop “Unlearn: Designing the line”, using drawing expression and the different qualities of the soil, with the intention to make participants fully aware of the power of water in the construction of sustainable and biodiverse spaces that can be used by the Fundão community.

The group coordinated by Space Transcribers proposed to explore storytelling as an instrument of architectural practice, capable of imagining spatial and critical scenarios for the future of the built environment. The performance ”Auto da Barca de Janeiro de Cima”, unravels and forges the links between the uncertain present and a fictionalized future.

In Cabeço do Pião, the workshop “Repair”, led by Guida Marques, proposed the creation of a place of experimentation through the development of actions that make us more aware of our individual role in the world. Through the company’s own processes of performance art, the participants explored the relationship with water, rurality, ancestry, and the future.

The workshop proposed by Ilhéu Atelier proposed to identify the manifestations and human representations of water. “To flow instead of being stone” uses a verse by Eugénio de Andrade to explore the interstices between individual and collective memory and develop a site-specific installation for the River beach of Castelo Novo.

Pedrêz developed the experimental workshop “Electro-tecture”, exploring the relationship between architecture and electromagnetism through experiments in agriculture, seeking to reduce freshwater consumption. The installation of 49 vases, occupies one of the playing fields of the Seminar and is now an experimental laboratory-in-progress.

In the Fundão seminar, Ponto Atelier traced the pre-existence in order to understand and transform the management of water. The workshop “Fo(u)r” built a water mirror in the middle of the courtyard, rewriting the symbolic and spiritual value of water and establishing a new centre of meeting among different cultures and generations.

The International Summer Seminar integrates the triad programme of Fertile Futures, in parallel with the exhibition in Venice, on display until November 26, 2023, at Palazzo Franchetti, and the Assemblies of Thought, five debates taking place in Lisbon, Venice, Braga, Faro and Porto Santo.