Exhibition | “eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau”
Exhibition | "eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau"
25
Oct
“eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau” exhibition shares the works of Master of Architecture students integrated in the “Parallel Worlds, Exhibition from Macao, China — 19th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia” programme.
The Department of Architecture and Design of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) at the University of Saint Joseph, Macao (USJ) is pleased to announce the Sharing Session to be held at the Opening of the exhibition eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau, which will take place on 25 October 2025, from 15:00 to 16:00, at the Kent Wong Gallery (B/1 floor).
The exhibition showcases the outcomes of the USJ Master of Architecture students’ workshop “eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau”. The workshop was done in the scope of the “Parallel Worlds, Exhibition from Macao, China”, at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Pritzker Prize laureate Wang Shu and Schrein Architecture Prize winner Lu Wenyu. Organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR Government and implemented by the Macao Museum of Art, Parallel Worlds is an official Collateral Event of the Venice Architecture Biennale. USJ attended the event and contributed to the research project “Mapping the Evolution of Macau City 1557–2022” for the exhibition, a series of 3D models that illustrate Macao’s urban development across 450 years.
One of the possibilities for understanding a complex urban organism is to use a set of different lenses to observe it. Reading a city using urban elements as a lens inquires into the specific characteristics revealed by the specific use and adaptation of the element to a specific context.
In the first days of May 2025, eleven students of the Master of Architecture of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Saint Joseph assisted in the assembly of the Venice Biennale Macau representation. During those days, the city of Venice was also the study object of the workshop, which resorted to an interpretative reading of urban elements and conditions to unveil the specificities of this singular urban fabric.
The urban reading workshop explored walking, drawing, photographing, and writing as privileged instruments for reading and interpreting the city of Venice. Using the routes that were walked each day, the Master of Architecture students and professors collected and produced a series of photographs and drawings focusing on one chosen urban element or condition and drafted a short descriptive and reflective text from the formal and functional qualities observed in situ.
In the return to Macau, the same exercise was done with the same words, enabling a comparative reading of the two cities using the same lens, 8 words for 2 cities that find parallels and symmetries in apparently divergent urban organisms.
FAH invites the entire community to participate in the opening session on 25 October, 15:00 and visit the exhibition until 3 November 2025.
Exhibition Details
Title: “Parallel Worlds, Exhibition from Macao, China — 19th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia” Sharing Session on the workshop “eight (8) words for two (2) cities: Venice | Macau”
Opening and sharing session: 25 October (Saturday), at 3 pm
Dates: 25 October to 3 November
Location: Kent Wong Gallery – Basement, USJ Ilha Verde Campus
Registration for the sharing session: https://www.mam.gov.mo/en/detail/2195
