1 and 2 Floor

entry: General Conditions

Espaço Interior

Lisbon Architecture triennale

2019-10-05
2020-01-05
Curatorship: Mariabruna Fabrizi e Fosco Lucarelli

Inner Space is part of an ongoing research project into the construction of the architectural imagination. It sets out to investigate the space between the inner and outer realities, a space that could be inhabited and explored in itself, looking for those moments in which the two realms interact most vividly. Besides, it also identifies two parallel and strictly intertwined movements intervening in the construction of architectural imagination: a collective one and an individual one, two spheres complementing each other. The aim is to identify imagination as an immersive territory that can be experienced, crossed and even inhabited, defined as a human ability which partly relies on a collective process. This collective moment in the construction of the imagination intertwines with an individual one, developed by each author. Inner Space also identifies how architectural imagination is capable of nourishing other disciplines: from art to videogames, virtual reality, comic books and forensic investigations.

The architectural design process usually starts with the identification of a number of ideas and mental images, which are translated into a series of documents (sketches, working models and drawings). This process does not resume each time a new project begins, instead relies on a lifelong construction of imagination fed by a casual voluntary relationship between the author and a field of images and concepts over a long time. Architects drew their inner space, constructing inventive means to connect the outer world and inner realm of their mind. The exhibition looks behind the curtains of the design process, questioning how the cognitive process of imagination unfolds and how it gets translated into a work of architecture, by identifying two parallel and strictly intertwined movements in the construction of imagination: a collective and an individual one.

Featuring works by
1825 Research, A Lim Kim, Adolphe Appia, Aldo Rossi, Aldo Van Eyck, Aleksandra Oszczak, Alvin Boyarsky, Andrea Palladio, Antonello da Messina, Atelier Bow-Wow, Athanasius Kircher, AUA Paul Chemetov, Auguste Choisy, Barbas Lopes Arquitectos, Beatriz Peró Giannini, Ben Babbitt, Benjamin Cole, BRUTHER, Cardboard Computer, Carlijn Olde Beverborg, Carlo Pagani, Carmody Groarke, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Cruz Y Ortiz Arquitectos, Dankmar Adler, David Katz, Davide Trabucco, Diener & Diener, DOGMA, dreambeam, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Edwin D.Babbitt, Elisa Galigny de Bonneval, Ephraim Chambers, Esjieun Kim, Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc, Forensic Architecture, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, François Chauveau, Franz Sales Meyer, Gabriel Thouin, Gareth Damian Martin, Georg Andreas Böckler, George Bailey, Georges Steinmetz, Gervase of Ebstorf, Giaime Meloni, Giancarlo Durisch, Giulio Camillo Delminio, Go Hasegawa and Associates, Grayson Perry, Hans Poelzig, Henri La Fontaine, Henrique Vieira Ribeiro, Herbert Bayer, Hokusai Katsushika, Irena Gajic, Isabel Seliger, Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty, Jacques-François Blondel, Jake Elliott, James Burgess, James Fergusson, Jean Antoine, Jochen Gerner, Johann Gottfried Grohmann, Johann Heinrich Lambert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Soane, Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz, Julien Rodriguez, Katryna Ciurlionis, Kazimir Malevitch, Kon Wajiro, Lanza Atelier, Le Corbusier, Liliana Farber, Lina Bo Bardi, Liza Diekema, Lizzie J. Magie, Louis Sullivan, Louise Drulhe, Luca Galofaro, Luca Pacioli, Lucille Lustremant, Lütjens Padmanabhan Architekten, Madeleine de Scudéry, Madelon Vriesendorp, Magdalena Wierzbicka, Manuele Fior, Marco Vitruvio Pollione, Massimo Scolari, Max Brückner, Molleindustria, Monadnock, Moses Harris, Motohide Kano, Noemie Goudal, Norman Kelley, Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen, OMA, Oswald Mathias Ungers, Paul Otlet, Percy Brown, Philippe Weisbecker, Prof. Hans Kollhoff Architekten, Rem Koolhaas, Robert Morris, Robert Sayer, Rustini, SANAA, Sebastiano Serlio, Shen Yuan, SKREI, Starrett & Van Vleck, Studio Vatn, Tamas Kemenczy, Tang Dai, Thomas Forsythe, Ustwo Game, Utagawa Kunisada, Valerio Olgiati Architect, Villard de Honnecourt, Vladimir Tatlin, Wang Youdun, Werner Lindner, William Chyr, William Henry Toms.



Activities

  • Activities
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On Exhibition

Loops.Expanded 2026

2026-07-14
2026-10-03
Curatorship: Irit Batsry
MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art – Chiado and DuplaCena present, for the 11th consecutive year, an exhibition dedicated to the loop as a seminal form of the moving image.
Temporary Exhibition

On Gestures and Forms

A dialogue between collections

2026-06-18
2026-09-20
Curatorship: MNAA e MNAC
Works from the collections of Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, and Fundação Millennium bcp, engage in a dialogue across different periods, materials, and approaches to artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Alice Geirinhas

Sycorax

2026-05-29
2026-09-20
Curatorship: Lúcia Saldanha e Rui Afonso Santos
Sycorax is an installation of drawings that summons the absent and silenced figure of Sycorax, the witch and mother of Caliban, characters from "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare.
Temporary Exhibition

Ultratremor

Group show

2026-05-29
2026-09-27
Curatorship: Germano Dushá
Between the visible and the invisible, the exhibition brings together artists who explore states of transformation, apparition, and resonance, bringing matter, imagination, and spiritual experience into dialogue.
Temporary Exhibition

Maria José Oliveira

I who once was I

2026-05-15
2026-10-04
Curatorship: Paula Parente Pinto
Maria José Oliveira transforms everyday materials and discarded objects into territories of memory, ritual, and metamorphosis, where time itself becomes a living material of artistic creation.
Temporary Exhibition

Impressões Digitais. MNAC Collection

2024-12-12
2026-12-30
Curatorship: Ana Guimarães, Emília Ferreira, Maria de Aires Silveira e Tiago Beirão Veiga
Consisting of founding works of contemporary Portuguese art historiography, from 1850 to the present day, the MNAC's collection holds several national treasures.
Permanent Exhibition