is it possible that a crystal casket from 1600 and the mausoleum of Alfredo da Silva, a prosperous industrialist from the Second Republic, have anything in common? What relation is there between a project by Álvaro Siza Vieira and The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, a painting by Gregório Lopes from the first half of the 16th century?
By rethinking architecture as a utopian and conceptual territory – and assuming that to project is an act of pure fantasy, capable of contaminating the different artistic fields - the exhibition promotes a new angle of approach to painting, sculpture, decorative arts.
It’s an extraordinary journey through an eclectic universe of about 150 works, from the MNAA and other collections, both public and private, from the 14th century to the present day.
Illustrating different appropriations of the values and resources of architecture, the exhibition is divided into seven sections: Architecture as an idea; To devise architecture; Microarchitecture; Architecture as a metaphor; Architecture as order; Architecture as authority; Imaginary architecture.
A debate that is necessarily retrospective and historic but, most of all, contemporary.


CURATORS
António Filipe Pimentel and Joaquim Oliveira Caetano