The exhibition Inhabiting Siza: architecture as seen by its residents, curated by Eduardo Ascensão (CEG-IGOT) and Paulo Catrica (IHC — NOVA FCSH), will be inaugurated on 10 September at 7pm, as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale. This exhibition represents the culmination of the Inhabiting Siza project, the main aim of which was to answer the question “what is the relationship between residents and Siza Vieira’s buildings?”.

In the exhibition, the curators analyzed ‘the way residents of housing designed by Álvaro Siza experience, and interact with, their apartments’ spatial layout, the buildings’ public spaces and housing micro-technologies as well as their buildings’ social status as tourist attractions in their everyday life’, seeking to fill the existing research gap ‘on Siza’s architecture related to the lack of knowledge on residents’ reception and appropriation of his architecture,’ as can be read on the Triennale’s official website.

Following an ethnographic approach, the project looked at three case studies with different characteristics and target populations: Bairro da Bouça, in Porto (designed for low-income populations); Malagueira, in Évora (lower-middle class populations); and Terraços de Bragança, in Lisbon (very high-income populations). The team used ‘ in-depth interviews, ethnographic “house visits” and elicitation of “residents in action with his/her home” through video and photography sessions’.

Before the inauguration itself, at 5pm, there will be a debate entitled Inhabiting Siza and the geographies of Architecture, which will begin with interventions by various researchers and will also include a lecture entitled “Doing words with things: The politics and poetics of Elemental’s social housing schemes”, given by Ignacio Farías (Humboldt University).

The exhibition will be open to the public at the Sinel de Cordes Palace until 3 November 2024. Admission is free.

Photo: Bairro da Bouça, in Porto (Credit: Eduardo Ascensão)