SPACE April 2024 (No. 677)
Held in Sharjah, the cultural capital and primary transportation hub of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT) explores design alternatives. Taking aim at the excessive amount of waste produced in contemporary urban life and by present architectural culture, it places new focus on traditional materials and building production methods from the Global South that are less culpable for the climate crisis. It also preserves and reuses Sharjah’s modern architecture, exhibiting in old traditional vegetable markets and slaughterhouses, abandoned mega-malls, abandoned schools, and ghost towns on the outskirts of the city. In the wake of the SAT 2019’s theme ‘Rights of Future Generations’, the SAT 2023, themed ‘The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability’, concluded on the 10th of March, 2024 after a four-month journey. SPACE spoke to Tosin Oshinowo, chief curator of SAT 2023, about what makes SAT unique, how it was conceived, and its wider implications for architectural culture.
Concrete Tent (2023) by DAAR, located in Al Madam Village
interview Tosin Oshinowo chief curator, Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2023 × Kim Bokyoung
Kim Bokyoung (Kim): SAT pays particular attention to architecture from the Global South. What makes the SAT unique com...
