Thinking, living and disclosing architecture

The Lisbon Architecture Triennial (LAT) was designed by the curators André Tavares and Diogo Seixas Lopes. LAT is a non-profit organization whose mission is to investigate, streamline, and promote architectural thought and practice. In 2013, it gained the Public Utility statute, and in 2010, the Cultural Interest statute, assigned by the Ministry of Culture.

Headed in the Sinel de Cordes Palace, in Campo de Santa Clara, LAT organizes and hosts events in multiple formats, that make the programming area in the Palace, where the Creative Pole is permanently working, that hosts innovative and multidisciplinary projects, that envisions the connection of architecture to other society sectors, promoting the cultural and economic development of the town. In this building of unique character, that was found abandoned at the time of the arrival of the Triennial, a progressive rehabilitation, conservation and restoration strategy as been developed, since 2012.

Aside from its main event, LAT also hosts the Distância Crítica conference, partnered with Belém Cultural Center, that bring Lisbon some of the major names in the global architecture, such as Kazuyo Sejima, Alberto Campo Baeza, Smiljan Radić or Ellen van Loon.

Annually, since 2012, the Open House Lisboa has been taking place, and it brings access to the general public, during one weekend, locations of differentiated nature, such as palaces, private houses, schools or churches.

For three times, Triennial was invited by the General Directorate for the Arts, to collaborate in the official representations in the Architecture Biennial, as it happened at the time of the seventh International Architecture Biennial of São Paulo; in the 12th Architecture Biennial of Venice, in 2010, and in the 14th Architecture Biennial of Venice, in 2014.

An open Portugal to the rest of the world through architecture

The Architecture Triennial occurs in Lisbon, every three years, and is destined to architectures, in particular, and to the general public, receiving, since its first edition, tenths of thousands visitors. Its mission is:

• To establish itself like an open platform for reflection and promotion of national and foreign architecture.
• To generate excellency contents for the architects and beside them, in a broader way, for the creative community and also for the great public with the perspective of sensitizing for the architectural practice assets.
• To position Portuguese architecture and the brands Lisbon and Portugal in the international cultural circuit.
• To assume a plural curatorship by proposing each edition a complementary and current approach.
• To encourage local and national economy, from the enlargement of the contact network and catalyzing media attention for the subject projection.
• To leave a legacy for the city with the rehabilitation of a building as a new architecture center, along with thematic publishing.

The Lisbon Architecture Triennial aims to investigate, streamline and promote thought and practice on architecture, placing the Portuguese architecture and the Lisbon and Portugal brands in the international cultural circuit.

Impact (results)