Journalist Nina Azzarello publishes a piece in Designboom on the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, titled Close, Closer, placing Zuloark’s Urban Parliament within a broader debate on the social role of architecture.
In her review of The Real and Other Fictions, curated by Mariana Pestana, Azzarello describes a triennale that does not simply display architecture, but seeks to produce conversation, participation and critical thought. In her reading, many of the works operate through fiction, utopia and experimentation in order to open up questions about the new scenarios of the discipline.
Within this context, she highlights Zuloark’s Urban Parliament as an installation that allows visitors to discuss the Universal Declaration of Urban Rights. The piece appears not merely as an exhibition object, but as an infrastructure for speaking, listening, taking position and collectively considering which rights should shape the contemporary city.
The article also underlines that Close, Closer is mainly addressed to the residents of Lisbon, rather than only to architecture tourists or specialised audiences. This idea connects directly with Urban Rights: moving architecture from representation towards use, from object towards debate, and from closed authorship towards common construction.
The Urban Parliament thus becomes part of an understanding of architecture as both a critical space and a space for critique: an architecture that is not only looked at, but used to discuss how we want to live together.