The 7th Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2025 is currently taking place from October 2 to December 8. Under the theme “How Heavy Is a City?”, the event reflects on cities and civilizations in the Anthropocene, a new phase in Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history. The Earth’s technosphere — the totality of human-made materials and systems — is estimated at 30 trillion tonnes. This massive mass, comparable to the biosphere, is growing rapidly, accelerated by the combustion dynamics of fossil fuels and resource extraction. As a result, all spaces and life forms on Earth are being reshaped, leaving behind vast amounts of debris.
The question “How Heavy Is a City?” goes beyond simply measuring the material weight of cities. It expands into a proposal to redefine human-centered concepts of urbanity and to explore new forms of architecture and action that coexist with other entities. It serves as both a philosophical and practical starting point for investigating how we might live more lightly and create sustainable cities.
The event features three main thought exhibitions that incorporate diverse approaches from architecture, culture, science, and art. Extending from scientific thought experiments, the Gedankenausstellung (thought exhibition) concept presents ideas and structures them within spatial frameworks. Exhibition design by Lisbon-based designer Fernando Brízio integrates formats and media, including poetry, scientific literature, and literary excerpts.
FLUXES explores the flows of matter, energy, and information that sustain humanity, and the intersections and cycles that shape them. SPECTRES investigates how imaging technologies needed to understand the impact of human spaces on the planet also reflect imperial and colonial power structures. LIGHTER examines ways of living more lightly within the unstable dynamics of the technosphere, which abstracts water, energy, fuel, materials, and information from the older planetary systems that sustain life on Earth.
FLUXES in MAAT
SPECTRES in MUDE
LIGHTER in MAC/CCB
The Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Awards consist of three categories: Universities, Début, and Achievement, celebrating transdisciplinary academic research, emerging talent, and the contributions of established architects. Winners receive a trophy designed by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira.
In the Universities category, the Center for Studies in Architecture and UrbanismCEAU at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, represented by the research group Architecture, Art, and Image AAI-CEAU, won the award. Project proponent Maria Neto and coordinator Pedro Leão Neto focused on the political and social significance of urban naming, using the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya as a case study. In the Début category for architects under forty, the Indian duo ReSa Architects was selected from 75 applicants. Their practice emphasizes the role of architecture in shaping social structures, exploring architecture as a collective social process through experimentation and research. The Achievement award was presented to Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female architect. After studying architecture at Oxford, she returned to Pakistan to establish her practice. Following her retirement in 2000, Lari focused on the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, dedicated to preserving and promoting sustainable vernacular architecture.
The three-day program Talk, Talk, Talk brings together architects, theorists, and activists to discuss how concepts of weight and pressure shape spaces and influence human and more-than-human infrastructures, environments, and ways of life. During TACT Days at the 18th-century Palácio Sinel de Cordes in Lisbon, a variety of programs take place, including guided tours, school workshops, creative and tech studios, film screenings, storytelling sessions, children’s play activities, and discussion salons, fostering new knowledge and civic imagination.
1. Dates
– Oct 2 (Thu)~Dec 8 (Mon)
2. Venue
– Across Lisbon, including Palácio Sinel de Cordes, the MAC – Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Belém Cultural Center
3. Programs
– SPECTRES — Empire and Extractivism, 10.29 (Wed) 18:00~21:30 / Kenny Cupers, Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari, Michael Marder, Christele Harrouk (Moderator, Editor-in-Chief of ArchDaily)
– FLUXES — Changes and Transformations, 10.30 (Thu) 18:00~21:30 / Andrés Jaque, Tiago Patatas, Kathryn Yusoff, Federica Zambeletti (Moderator, Founder and Director of KoozArch)
– LIGHTER — How to Make Otherwise, 10.31 (Fri) 18:00~21:30 / Supawut Boonmahathanakorn, Cristina Díaz Moreno, Efrén García Grinda, Eyal Weizman, Lilet Breddels (Moderator, Director of Archis Foundation, Publisher of Volume Magazine)
