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Lisbon Triennial Draws Attention to Human Contribution to Environmental Crises, But Ignores Concrete Solutions
The curators, London-based, Swiss-Finnish architecture couple John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, wished to ask how the Anthropocene is changing our understanding of cities, architecture and urban planning. Thus, the Triennale presents impressive array of projects exploring everything from archaeology to astronomy and from climate science to colonial legacies.
Seventh Lisbon Architecture Triennale: How Heavy Is a City?
Lisbon, Portugal
2.10.–8.12. 2025
Thirty trillion tonnes. This comprehension-defying figure is what the curators of the 2025 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, London-based, Swiss-Finnish architecture couple John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, have put forward in answer to “how heavy is a city?”, the question they have chosen as the event’s thematic focus.
The calculation, first arrived at in 2016, expresses in numeric terms the total mass of all human-created materials, a sum total also known as the technosphere. Given that the material, energy and information flows that constitute the modern urban environment reach into virtually every nook and cranny of the globe, the curators argue, the figure can also be used to illustrate the weight of a city. Obviously, considerably more concrete, steel and other materials have been brought into being in the past nine years, so there is a chance this sizeable figure is now slightly off.
In choosing this theme, Palmesino and Rönnskog are reaching out to experts across a range of different disciplines to ask how the Anthropocene is changing our understanding of cities, architecture and urban planning. It should be noted that these issues have in recent years been picked up by other exhibitions, seminars and publications, including the 2024 Alvar Aalto Symposium in Jyväskylä, titled The Weight of Architecture. That said, the Triennale does present to visitors an impressive array of projects exploring everything from archaeology to astronomy and from climate science to colonial legacies. The downside to all this variety is the resulting lack of focus on design as a practical pursuit. Before the first day was out, the Triennale had drawn criticism for sidelining architecture.
Another challenging aspect inherent to this approach is the difficulty it presents with connecting the expansive global themes with decidedly local, urban concerns. In their introductory text, the curatorial pair reference the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the debates that ensued across Europe in its wake to establish whether the near-total destruction it had wreaked across the city was an expression of god’s will, a matter of natural forces at work or simply negligence on part of the city’s planners. For Palmesino and Rönnskog this debate constitutes the origin story of a scientific and human-centred worldview and, by the same token, the beginning of the climate crisis we now face. So far so satisfying. But it is a shame that the pair have not opted to then shed similar light on more expressly present-day concerns. How, for example, might the mass tourism, housing shortages and biodiversity loss that plague Lisbon today appear when viewed from a global perspective and vice versa?
Challenging aspect is the difficulty with connecting the expansive global themes with decidedly local, urban concerns.
Due to the lack of an appropriate exhibition space, the main exhibition is divided into three museums. The three parts nevertheless succeed in creating a more coherent and cohesive display than some of the Triennale’s predecessors. The first two – “Fluxes” at the MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology and “Spectres” at the MUDE Design Museum – share a very similar format: the majority of the projects are presented on a series of screens suspended at a height of about two feet on lengths of clear plastic sheeting hung from the gallery ceiling. It is the differences between the scale and feel of the galleries themselves that lend a specific quality to each viewing experience. At MUDE, the low-slung room fades into darkness as the visitors’ attention is captured by the illuminated displays, while over at MAAT the lengths of transparent plastic accentuate the sheer vastness of the space, reflecting the abundant natural light. (The latter museum is appositely housed in a former coal-fired power plant built in 1909.) Though the decision to opt for such energy-intensive synthetic materials feels jarring at first, it soon becomes apparent just how deftly the omnipresence of plastic underscores our utter reliance of fossil energy.
Not all the projects showcased here are a good fit with the video-based format, nor are the horizontally oriented screens the most ideal way to view them. After just a few ten-minute videos, it all begins to feel a bit samey. Happily, the third part of the main exhibition has something fresh and different in its gift. Titled “Lighter”, it can be found at the fortress-like Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB). Translucent plastic curtains has been used here to divide the former parking garage into a series of smaller spaces, creating the perfect amount of room for the individual projects, again mostly in a video format.
After the first two sections of the exhibition, which present visitors with one global environmental problem after another, it is impossible not to hope that “Lighter” might, in keeping with its name, deliver something rather less oppressive and perhaps even illuminate the way towards more climate-resilient cities. During the press tour, Palmesino notably made reference to Buckminster Fuller’s lightweight structures, the sustainability of which has repeatedly been called into question. Although many of the projects presented here are genuinely fascinating, it is a shame they offer so little in the way of practical ideas. Perhaps the most overtly hands-on of the projects is the Atlas of Post-Carbon Architecture, an information platform compiled by Philip Rizzotti.
The decision to opt for energy-intensive synthetic materials feels jarring at first, it soon becomes apparent just how deftly the omnipresence of plastic underscores our utter reliance of fossil energy.
If the main exhibition leaves you feeling a little dissatisfied, the Independent Projects, integral to the Lisbon Triennale concept, go some way towards remedying that. These projects can be found scattered alongside the main exhibition at the CCB, at the Palácio Sinel de Cordes which serves as the Triennale’s HQ and in stand-alone interventions around the Portuguese capital. Among them, some of the more tangibly-minded contributions come in the form of Paul Cetnarksi’s survey of unfinished nuclear power plant projects around the world, Besley & Spresser’s project repurposing asbestos as a building material and Atelier Holcnerova’s Anthropocene Apartment, a tiny home built inside a former commercial unit using recycled materials.
The Nordic countries make an impressive showing here. One of the Fluxes screens shows a video charting the refurbishment of AaltoSiilo, a former wood chip silo designed by Alvar Aalto, in Oulu, Finland undertaken by the Factum Foundation and Skene Catling de la Peña. On another, the Swedish Brrum practice reflects the Stuor Muorkkegårttje waterfall to shed light on the exploitation of the Arctic region’s natural resources and the indigenous peoples that reside there. And, if you manage to locate it amongst all the foliage at Estufa Fria greenhouse, Neighbours of Architecture’s subtle and sophisticated sound installation Second Nature is a thoroughly rewarding treat. Perhaps the biggest surprise at the Triennale comes in the form of Finnish cultural historian Jussi Parikka, whose calm voice intones across the bleak immensity of the CCB. His Lumi, a poetic video installation created in collaboration with media artist Abelardo Gil-Fournier, is fully deserving of an airing in its home country too. ↙
