LAUSANNE.- Agriculture and Architecture: Taking the Country’s Side, after its debut in Lisbon as part of The Poetics of Reason, is now showcased at the Archizoom gallery settled on the campus of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. Curated by Sébastien Marot, philopher and teacher of Environmental History at EPFL, the exhibition is open from 27 February to 29 April 2020.

Co-produced by Lisbon Triennale and CCB, it explores the evolution of the connection between agriculture and architecture, two complementary practices of domestication that emerged together about ten thousand years ago, during the Neolithic Revolution. By reconnecting these two disciplines, it aims to learn from agricultural scientists, activists and designers who have consistently explored the hypothesis of a future of energy descent and its consequences, for the redesign and maintenance of living territories. Based on a research process which involved EPFL, the exhibition provides a new perspective on the environmental challenges facing our world today.

Aiming to reach not only architects but all those concerned with the current evolution of the environment in which we live, the visitor can learn concepts such as permaculture, social ecology or agroecology through a series of panels, films, interviews and documentaries.

The exhibition includes four large illustrations depicting four different approaches to the future of urban planning: Incorporation, where agriculture is absorbed into the urban economy; Infiltration, where agriculture steadily infiltrates cities, abandoned plots of land, old urban sites and rooftops; Negotiation, where new suburbs are built to include farmed areas as a fundamental component; and Secession, or the opposite of Incorporation, where today’s urban planning methods are deemed no longer appropriate and are replaced by methods inspired by horticulture and permaculture.

Besides the exhibition, there is a public programme of talks, lectures and workshops:

• 25 March, 19:00: Talk on the status of agriculture in architectural theory with Georges Descombes, Éric Lapierre and Sébastien Marot

• 1 April, 18:30: Lecture on Agriculture and Regionalism, led by Paola Viganò

• 8 April, 18:30: Lecture on Agriculture and Territory, led by Elena Cogato Lanza

• 14 March and 4 April: Workshops for children

Sébastien Marot — Curator Biography
Philosopher and professor of Environmental History at the School of Architecture of the city and territories of Paris-Est and visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (in the program led by Rem Koolhaas and AMO) and at the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne. Sébastien Marot is a regular writer on the genealogy of contemporary theories in architecture, urban design and urbanism, as well as being the author of several books on the same themes. He was part of the curatorial team of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2019, The Poetics of Reason.