Direction without guidance: a circular conversation with Kim Förster and Lars Fischer from common room

common room is an architectural practice with a publishing imprint, and an exhibition space. It is collaborative platform based in New York City and Brussels. common room is comprised of architects Lars Fischer, Maria Ibañez and Todd Rouhe; Rachel Himmelfarb; architectural researcher Kim Förster; and graphic designer Geoff Han. Among many projects they redesigned exhibition spaces such as Artists Space New York (2009), Yale Union Portland (2012), reconfigured the lobby of the International Center of Photography New York (2016) and designed an exhibition pavilion for the Zuiderzeemuseum, the Netherlands (2017). Lars Fischer and Kim Förster of common room will describe how common room defines its approach to architecture as an active engagement in the process of understanding, interpreting and shaping spatial relationships through the different formats of design, self-publishing, and public schooling. In the talk a number of premises and assumptions about architecture will be questioned with the intention of exploring how common room might engage in the Portuguese context in light of a future exhibition an Galerias Municipais. After a presentation we invite you to join us for an informal conversation to continue discussing which kind of architectural mediations or which sort of agency has already worked in the Portuguese context.