Classroom

Classroom is an architectural exhibition that focuses on the learning environments of young people. The exhibition takes the classroom as its starting point and explores its influence on the development of adolescents. The pandemic served as a significant source of inspiration for the exhibition, as it emphasized that where and how one learns plays a significant role during the transition from child to adult.

The traditional classroom, where “frontal” teaching has been questioned for decades, is being reevaluated. Recent developments and new insights in the fields of digitalization, ecology, and the changing job market have had a significant impact and impose new demands on the way learning occurs. This transition requires new types of learning spaces and challenges the traditional organization of schools.

The exhibition is divided into five chapters: Production, Embodiment, Assembly, Transgression and Profession. Each chapter focuses on an iconic school building that is still in use today and represents a collection of adolescents’ perspectives. Such as St Crispin’s School in Wokingham,  Roland Bechmann’s design for the secondary agricultural school in Avignon, the polygonal aula of the Geschwister-Scholl-Gesamtschule in Lünen, completed in 1962 by Hans Scharoun, the Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory in Aveiro designed by Noémia Coutinho, Loureiro, Pádua and the Jean Mermoz professional high school in Béziers, designed in the 1950s by Pierre Jeanneret along with Jean Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand.

Through the use of models of these iconic school buildings, videos featuring testimonials from students, school furniture, and floor plans, the exhibition raises two important questions: What kinds of learning environments do we need today? And how can we adapt existing school buildings to meet these new requirements?

About the project
Classroom is a co-production with Garagem Sul (Lisbon), arc en rêve centre d’architecture (Bordeaux), and Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture (Hasselt). The project is co-financed by the European Union.

Curator: Joaquim Moreno
Architect Joaquim Moreno (Luanda, 1973) studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto. He holds a Master’s degree from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona and a PhD from Princeton University. He is currently head of studies at FAUP, the Architecture School at Porto University.

Together with José Gil, Moreno curated the Portuguese Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2015, he co-curated with Paula Pinto the exhibition Carlo Scarpa. Túmulo Brion. Guido Guidi at Garagem Sul at the Belém Cultural Center.

He is the author of The University on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture, a book that accompanied a 2018 exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Moreno was a contributor to Jornal Arquitectos and, along with Paula Pinto and Pedro Bandeira, is also editor of the journal InSi(s)tu. He writes regularly for national and international publications.