[Condições Crónicas: Corpo e Construção] 12 October to 11 December 2021 at Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Lisboa. Commissioned and organised by the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, as part of the Future Architecture Platform 2021, themed Landscape of Care. Curator: Anna Ulrikke Andersen. Design: L’Atelier Senzu.

Curatorial lines

As we live longer, more people will live with chronic illnesses. Told from a personal narrative of chronic rheumatic illness, the curator of this exhibition asks: how do our bodies respond to buildings? 

This exhibition uses the patient perspective captured in recent photographs and original films to revisit a selection of drawings and photographs from leading European collections, part of the Future Architecture Platform. Starting from the chronically ill body, we focus on fluids, joinery and openings, both in bodies and buildings, explored by architects and artists from 1822 to 1983.

A complete A to Z guide into this thematic is not possible. The exhibition highlights that the blueprint we have today is incomplete and should be developed further. Instead, we move from A to X: A for Architecture, to X, the unknown future, showing the way chronic illness affect our experience of landscapes, buildings and infrastructures. How can we configure a new alphabet to help us with the new tomorrow? 

Collections

• Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon
• Estonian Museum of Architecture, Tallinn
• MAO – Museum of Architecture and Design, Ljubljana
• MAXXI – National Museum for 21st Century Arts – Collezione Architettura, Rome
• Museum of Architecture in Wrocław
• Royal Academy of Arts, London
• S AM – Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel

Films by Anna Ulrikke Andersen.

Exhibition design

Designed by L’Atelier Senzu, the scenography focuses on the use of textile material combined with the upcycling of exhibition elements to create an intimate atmosphere. In partnership with Burel Factory, a set of panels was designed in burel, a Portuguese handcrafted fabric made from Serra da Estrela sheep’s wool, which transforms the Palace’s exhibition rooms and takes advantage of this textile’s unique acoustic and thermal properties. With the reuse of material from previous exhibitions, L’Atelier Senzu challenges our perception of accessibility through some proposals that dare the body to adapt to different positions of the shown elements.

L’Atelier Senzu is a Paris-based architectural firm founded in 2015 by Wandrille Marchais and David Dottelonde. The studio explores different areas of creation to imagine unique responses to climate and societal challenges. The office won the international competition for the transformation of the Chamber of Notaries, located Place du Châtelet in Paris, and recently completed the new Galerie Perrotin in the same city. They are also currently developing the first structural rammed earth building in the French capital.

In 2021, L’Atelier Senzu won the prize “Albums des Jeunes Architects et Paysagistes (AJAP)”, a biennial prize from the Ministry of Culture. They were also granted from the “Academy of Fine Arts” which annually awards five prizes each to young artists in the disciplines of painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving and musical composition.

Featuring works by

Benjamin Robert Haydon

Carlo Scarpa

Jerzy Mokrzyński

Josip Osojnik

Lucía de Mosteyrín Muñoz

Mário Novais

Ott Puuraid

William Home Lizars

Max Rasser

Samuele Tirendi / denkstatt sàrl

Tibère Vadi

Patients’ photographs and quotes

Collection of photographs and quotes: Anna Ulrikke Andersen and Anne Silje Bø. With the support of the Norwegian Arts Council

Collaboration

Norsk Folkemuseum, Minner.no, Norsk Revmatikerforbund Østfold, Bekhterev Norge.