From the architects and curatorial team. One of architecture’s fundamental legacies is its own form. Not only is history built from its visual universe, but form is also a common language that brings together architects from all over the world in a collective conversation. In this exhibition, which proceeds from a potentially infinite repository, three architects—Johnston Marklee, Nuno Brandão Costa, and Office KGDVS—build a dialogue that challenges notions of authorship and the limits of form.

Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli were invited to reflect upon a selection of examples from their platform, Socks Studio. They highlight the permanence of form and its capacity to condense a set of values into any visible thing. The Socks format has evolved over the years from an online magazine to become a platform for speculation and discussion that also draws on Microcities’ own architectural projects.

Functioning as a “conversation,” the narrative of the exhibition has been developed around a number of spaces that are inspired by examples of architectural designs by the architects. Each of the spaces is designed to house content selected from the extensive Socks database.

The language of architecture is explored through a sample of construction drawings, landscape interventions, urban plans, artistic investigation, and other elements. Originating from different time periods and regions of the world, the content highlights what remains constant and what changes, as well as identifying analogies and affinities in the creation of the built environment. Organized along twelve interlinked spaces, with each space incorporating images related to a core element, the exhibition defines continuous seam of works that are directly inter-related, be it through affinity or opposition.

Curated by Diogo Seixas Lopes, The Form of Form exhibition is also a process in itself. The ultimate aim is for it to become a “meeting space” that can demonstrate the meaning of form in architectural design – in the past, present and future.