Promotions: the Oslo Architecture Triennale will return in September 2022 with “Mission Neighborhood”, a program exploring how to create diverse, inclusive and sustainable urban development.
The 8th Oslo Architecture Triennale will run from 22 September to 30 October at the Old Munch Museum and other venues across Oslo.
Directed and curated by Christian Pagh, it aims to bring professionals and citizens together to imagine ways to build fair and thriving neighborhoods.

“Current development in the city makes it clear that we need to find a new understanding and approach to how to build and develop neighborhoods,” said Pagh. “Where if not the Nordic cities can be the role model for better, more sustainable and social neighborhoods?”
“How can Oslo meet those expectations?” he continued. “Mission Neighborhood goes beyond criticism and represents an optimistic call for action.”

At the heart of the program is the Oslo Neighborhood Labwhich will take over the Old Munch Museum and turn it into an alternative exhibition space and festival hub, home to three of the Triennale’s key exhibitions.
Mission Neighborhood: (Re)forming communities will feature direct commissions, selections from the Triennale’s international Open Call, artistic interventions and student projects, all responding to the challenge of how to form more diverse, more generous and more sustainable neighborhoods.

The Peter Cook: City Landscapes exhibition will feature the drawings of Peter Cook, whose colorful architectural drawings have suggested visionary new ways of shaping cities, buildings and landscapes.
And Oslo in the Making will look at “the state of the neighborhood thinking and doing” in the Norwegian capital with an overview of current projects, including an analysis of proposals for the Grønlikaia development.

The Neighborhood Lab will also be home to talks, workshops, conferences, social gatherings, concerts and a pop-up cafe run by Forandringshuset, a social enterprise helping young people.
Elsewhere around Oslo, the National Museum, one of the Triennale’s main partners, will host the exhibition Architecture: Coming Into Community. Here the focus will be on who’s been included and excluded from urban development, with queer and feminist perspectives contributing to the discourse.

The exhibition will include an installation by Swedish art and architecture collective MYCKET. It will transform part of the museum into a queered and playful place and is based on the group’s research into queer spaces and nightclub architecture.
Meanwhile, arts venue ROM will host Betraktninger = Observations, Dialogues and Actions, which will present 15 artistic responses to the idea of the neighborhood. Many of the projects are based on the neighborhood around ROM, Maridalsveien, while others focus on other parts of the city.

A key educational event is the Triennale Academy at the Oslo School of Architecture and Designwhich will bring together students and staff from European schools in Oslo to engage with the festival’s curatorial team on the topic of “(RE)acting/(EN)acting: Collective Dissidence, Reclaiming the Neighborhood”.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has clarified the importance of the neighborhood, as well as significant inequalities when it comes to access to neighborhood qualities,” said Pagh in his curatorial statement. “The Triennale aims to add insight, ideas and proposals for action that can help build more quality neighborhoods for the many.”
The Oslo Architecture Triennale takes place from 22 September to 30 October 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for the Oslo Architecture Triennale as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.