Annual meeting of architects kicks off with exhibition

The 23rd International Council of Portuguese Speaking Architects (CIALP) kicked off on Friday with an exhibition on architectural photography.
A kick-off ceremony for the annual meeting was held at the Portuguese consulate along with the inauguration of CIALP’s Architectural Heritage Photography Exhibition, which showcased 39 photographs within the consulate’s hall. The exhibition marks the outcome of the first international photography competition organized by CIALP, a joint project with the Portuguese architects.
The 39 items in the exhibition are the final photos selected or preselected by the jury. An award will be given to three winners.
The theme of the exhibition is heritage in
the Portuguese-speaking countries, and in the world.
“For us, this particular project is very important because it allows CIALP to reach out to everybody, namely architects and even the public in general. To have this collection of images is useful to promote our heritage and our cities,” architect Rui Leão told the Times on the sidelines of the exhibition.
He remarked that the exhibition is important for the association because it represents a large universe of around 150,000 Portuguese-speaking architects worldwide: in Angola, Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, São Tomé, Macau, among other places.
“They are very different territories with very different scales and densities and so on. It’s important for us to somehow help promote this cultural universe which has its own characteristics and specificities, which makes us feel as we are part of a big family,” Leão said.
This exhibition also marks the beginning of the association’s 23rd annual meeting. Introducing his association, Rui stated that CIALP is an umbrella association whose members are national architects from all these countries.
Set up in 1991, the association is likely one of the widest Portuguese networks. Since its establishment, CIALP has been holding annual encounters, round tables, among other activities.
CIALP is a private non-governmental organization based in Lisbon, Portugal. The association is comprised of professional associations of architects from countries and territories of Portuguese official language. CIALP is an institutional partner of the International Union of Architects (UIA) and advisory observer of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
CIALP’s main ambition is to deepen the cooperation between its members, as well as to promote architecture among people who speak Portuguese, establishing itself as a platform for 150,000 architects of the Portuguese language, which is around 10% of the architects throughout the world, to a population of 250 million people of countries and territories with Portuguese as an official language.