IABsp announced the curatorial team of the Open Call for Curation for XII International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo. The team formed by the Brazilian architects Ciro Miguel, Vanessa Grossman and the French Charlotte Malterre-Barthes were chosen by the jury through the proposal titled Todo Dia.
"Today, after decades of questioning architecture’s capacity to fulfill its social mandate and resist the political, economic, and environmental aporias that have historically conditioned it in spite of the architect’s will, the fear that the discipline will disappear as a human activity, supplanted by new technologies of automation, adds to this generalized sense of powerlessness. A new ethic and aesthetic of humbleness, where the vulnerability of architecture in view of inevitable global changes is taken at face value, is widespread. Architects are turning towards the most basic questions about architecture, its techniques and its very origins. More than fifteen years after Rem Koolhaas’ “Junkspace” manifesto, there is a continuous move towards the ordinary, the mundane, the quotidian, through a diffuse notion of how the most trivial level of reality — the so-called “everyday” — can contribute to the manufacture of architecture and urbanism even more so than the other way around. Over the last decade, contemporary theories of the everyday have begun to impregnate architecture’s realms of practice and theory. The curatorial proposal Everyday, argues the “everyday” as the privileged platform upon which we can scrutinize how architecture strives to persist as a human specialized activity in the 21st century." Summary of the Everyday proposal presented by the winner team.
The jury composed by Adèle Naudé Santos, André Corrêa do Lago, Carla Juaçaba, Gabriela Leandro, Gloria Cabral, Lu Wenyu, Marisa Moreira Salles, Patricia Anahory, Thiago de Andrade and Wang Shu, and representing IABsp, Fabiane Carneiro, Marcela Ferreira, Pedro Vada, evaluated the 13 proposals accepted in two phases. In the first phase, it selected 4 finalist proposals and in the second the jury selected the winning proposal and the placement of each finalist.
The jury classified the proposals in the following order:
- proposal number 24, registered under the responsibility of Ciro Miguel, entitled "Everyday”
- proposal number 37, registered under the responsibility of Vanessa Raposo Mendes, with the title "Instead of"
- proposal number 27, registered under the responsibility of Gabriel Kogan, entitled "Radiographies of the production of space”
- proposal number 29, registered under the responsibility of Francesco Perrotta Bosch, with title "[ ] civilization"
The evaluation of the finalist proposals, in order of registration, is the following:
Proposal number 24, registered under the responsibility of Ciro Miguel, with title “Every day”. The proposal has as virtue to bring the architecture to a perspective of the daily life of all, which attributes signification and legitimation to architecture. The proposed theme prioritizes the experience of space and dialogues with the international context in a process that intends to be inclusive, interdisciplinar and transgenerational.
Proposal number 27, registered under the responsibility of Gabriel Kogan, entitled “Radiographies of the production of space”. The proposal presents a relevant theme of revealing the processes and stages of production of the architecture in an integrated way. It notably proposes a dialogue with non-specialized public, while problematizing and discussing issues critical to the discipline.
Proposal number 29, registered under the responsibility of Francesco Perrotta Bosch, with title “[ ] Civilization”. The proposal addresses topics of great relevance in the present time, which revolve around the central theme “civilization”. The localization strategy of the Biennial is promising and curators are committed and careful to build an inclusive Biennale.
Proposal number 37, registered under the responsibility of Vanessa Raposo Mendes, with title “Instead of”. The proposal is decisive and critical in addressing topics that generate great tension at the moment. It problematizes, within the discipline, issues that are transversal to our society. It also proposes an interesting dialogue with the non-specialized public.
Bellow you can check out more information about the winning team.
Ciro Miguel is an architect, visual artist and photographer. He holds a professional diploma in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo and a Master's research degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP. He works as assistant professor in architectural design at ETH Zurich since 2013. He was a partner at Angelo Bucci / SPBR arquitetos in 2003-2007 and 2010-2013, and an architect at Bernard Tschumi Architects in New York from 2008 to 2010. As an architect and artist, he participated in various exhibitions in both Brazil and Europe, including the two last editions of the Venice International Architecture Biennale and the International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo in 2016.
Vanessa Grossman is an architect, a historian of architecture, a writer and a curator working on architecture’s intersections with ideology, power and government policies. She holds a professional diploma in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo, a Master's research degree in the History of Architecture from the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, and has recently completed her PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University. She currently teaches at the University of Toronto, and has been selected postdoctoral researcher as one of the first two fellows of the newly created Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture at ETH Zurich (deferred to 2019-2020). Grossman was the assistant curator of La modernité, promesse ou menace?, the French Pavilion at the 14th Venice International Architecture Biennale in 2014, which has received a Special Mention from the Jury, and cocurator of the exhibition Une architecture de l'engagement: L'AUA (1960-1985) at the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris (2015-2016), both together with Jean-Louis Cohen.
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, urban designer, and contemporary scholar. After interning at Coop Himmelb(l)au, she graduated magna cum laude from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille with ‘a Women Social Centre in Baghdad’, tackling political and social involvements of architecture. Principal of the urban design practice OMNIBUS, Malterre-Barthes is director of the MAS Urban Design at the Chair of Marc Angélil at ETH Zurich since 2014. She holds a PhD from ETH Zurich on ‘Food Territories’ and the effects of the political economy of food on the built environment, with a focus on Egypt. She co-authored with Marc Angélil Housing Cairo: The Informal Response (DAM prizewinner 2016) and Cairo Desert Cities (Berlin, Ruby Press). Malterre-Barthes is a founding member of the Parity Group, a grassroots association committed to improving gender equality in architecture.
As stated in the call, the jury's decision can be appealed within 5 business days.
