Concrete Reboot

The «Concrete Reboot» project, curated by Magda Seifert and Pedro Baía, materializes in an exhibition presented on 28th October, at the Circo de Ideias architecture gallery, with a conversation between the curators, the project’s photographers, Francisco Ascensão and Luca Bosco, and the essays’ authors, Atelier Local and Nuno Grande.

Following the reflections developed in the projects «Porto Brutalista» (2019) and «Lisboa Brutalista» (2023), this research project proposes going beyond the aesthetic or linguistic approaches associated with reinforced concrete, to confront it as a construction system responsible for materialize the spirit of an architectural language. It proposes going beyond the celebration and recording of architectures made with reinforced concrete, to delve deeper into the implications of its use in our ecosystem, from the extraction and processing processes, to its application on site.

The exhibition is the result of the challenge launched to photographers Francisco Ascensão and Luca Bosco to carry out a photographic essay that explored the issue of the different phases of concrete, to Atelier Local to propose an essay that would frame the work captured by photographers and Nuno Grande to problematize this issue from architectural practice view.

The project was support by Direcção-Geral das Artes in the research area of the Programa de Apoio a Projectos — Procedimento Simplificado of 2021.