In the age of the Anthropocene
In the age of the Anthropocene, in which humanity acts on cycles and systems with all its power and capital, the interface between architecture and energy concerns more than solely operational or even embodied energy, or active and passive solutions. Considering the climate crisis, the phase-out of fossil fuels and the abandonment of the internal combustion engine, architecture has a mediating role; with its focus on alternative energies, architecture is also about socio-cultural rethinking.
The work of the two Portuguese Pritzker Prize-winning architects alone, Álvaro Siza Vieria and Eduardo Souto de Moura, provides concrete instances of how access to energy has shaped the built environment. Siza’s early projects in Matosinhos/Porto, its waterfront with Casa da Chá do Boa Nova and Piscina das Marés, and the boulevard connecting them both, commissioned by the oil industry, and Eduardo Souto de Moura's design for the Foz Tua dam, are only a few examples.
In addition, the exhibition venue Galeria Avenida da Índia itself and its urban surroundings in Belém testify to how architecture and energy were negotiated, implemented, represented, and received. The urban area exposes the intensification of urbanization and modernization processes, densification, and land consumption, which also define the great acceleration since the 1950s.
