Porto, Portugal, Sept. 11, 2024 (Lusa) - Architects from more than 35 countries responded to the challenge launched by Portugal's Porto region Maia city council on "What is a space of freedom?", an initiative that culminates on 5 October with the inauguration of an exhibition, open until November.
The local council explained in a statement on Wednesday that the challenge was launched to architects Ana Resende and Nuno Melo Sousa to curate "an exhibition in dialogue with the commemorative date", referring to the 50th anniversary of 25 April and the Maia Architecture Month (MAM).
To respond to the challenge, the curators invited 50 architects to reflect on the question "What is a space of freedom?", which gives the exhibition its name, with each participant contributing a text and a complement in the form of an image, drawing, video, sound or object.
From these invitations came responses from more than 35 countries, such as Brazil, Chile and the United States (continental America), Germany, Spain and Ukraine (Europe), Angola, Ghana and Zimbabwe (Africa), Bahrain, China and Japan (Asia) and Australia (Oceania), among others.
Álvaro Siza, Animali Domestici and aoa architects open the alphabetical list of the 50 contributions to the exhibition. They are followed by Bernard Khoury, Carlos Nogueira, Ciro Miguel, Civil Architecture, Cryptic. K, Daryan Knoblauch, Dominique Petit-Frere (Limbo Accra), DUA Studio, Eduardo Longo, Elvira Solana Rico, Field Atelier, Grandeza Studio, Hélène Frichot, Hui Pan, Irina Davidovici, Ivo Barão, Jack Self, Javier Agustín Rojas, Jesús María Aparicio, Julia Albani, Kevin Mark Low, LCLA Office, Luísa Penha, Marc Leschelier, Margarida Waco, Maria Helena Rente and José Carlos Portugal, Mariana Pestana and Joana Pestana, Maruša Zorec, Mary Duggan, Matteo Ghidoni, METALAB, Noura Al Sayeh-Holtrop, Oliver Wainwright, Paula Nascimento, Peggy Deamer, Satoko Shinohara, Sean Godsell, Smiljan Radic, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO, TEd'A, Thandi Loewenson, Tomoaki Uno, Tosin Oshinowo, Valerio Olgiati, WOJR, Wolff Architects and Yasmeen Lari.
The Maia council is highlighting the participation of some architects, starting with the architectural collective METALAB, from Ukraine, which is sending a ceramic sculpture that also functions as a game.
"The piece, ironically, arrived in Portugal damaged, but without losing the will to participate, the collective accepts that it be glued and complements its response, evoking the idea of fragility and the need for collective spaces of freedom and care," reads the presentation of the exhibition.
Pakistani Yasmeen Lari refers to the 500,000 housewives who live in rural Pakistan, for whom "Chulah cookers are spaces of freedom and creativity, after years of being subjected to squatting on rubbish-strewn pavements in front of wood-burning cookers".
For American Peggy Deamer, freedom is "an ambiguous term" and is not a spatial condition. However, she emphasises the bedroom as a fundamental place for freedom of thought.
Hui Pan, from China, states in his proposal that "a genuinely free space must guarantee intellectual liberation, allowing people to abandon common sense".
Daryan Knoblauch, from Germany, participates in the exhibition by presenting a project rejected in a competition for allegedly allowing "too much freedom" for the user.
The architect is taking this opportunity, in a conceptual gesture, to reposition the piece and allude to risk and its implications.
Daryan Knoblauch will also hold a workshop the day after the opening (6 October, Sunday, at 3pm), which will consist of the construction of "ready mades", small installations that will serve to expand the notion of taking risks.
During the weekends, the Maia Architecture Month offers a variety of activities for all ages, including workshops, guided tours and the launch of the exhibition catalogue.
PM/AYLS // AYLS
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