iamgem

CONCEPT

Performance Architecture is an international ideas competition aimed at choosing proposals for five temporary urban interventions in the scope of Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture. The competition intends to draw up architectural and urban strategies that, in reactivating performance art approaches, provide new directions as to the roles of architects, artists and designers in the urban context. The competition selects multidisciplinary teams proposing temporary concepts and structures that will stimulate the appropriation of controversial public spaces by the city inhabitants.

AIMS

While welcoming temporary interventions that meet programming needs for the visibility and urban interaction of Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture (kiosks, receptions, micro-exhibitions, meeting- points, playgrounds, etc.), the Performance Architecture competition focuses on architectural and urban practices that replace the building of monuments and other lasting structures with installations, actions, happenings and temporary urban interventions.

Through ideas that will come out of a bottom-up selection process – however involving protagonists who foresaw this approach as members of the jury and participants in a one-day seminar – Performance Architecture centres on architectural operations that acknowledge the awareness of the body, the relevance of the community and the presence of a social critique in reinventing public space.

Up to five chosen works will be built and experienced in the public space of the city of Guimarães. A broader pre-selection of up to thirty proposals will be included in a catalogue and a small retrospective to be held during the same period. These components of the project will be accompanied by critical texts and a curatorial approach to this current of architectural activity, including the portrait of approaches and projects carried out over the last fifteen years.

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