OAT's 'Mission Neighbourhood'

John Hill

21. April 2021

Image via Oslo Architecture Triennale

Christian Pagh, director and curator of the Oslo Architecture Triennale, has announced the theme for the 2022 iteration: Mission Neighbourhood – (Re)forming communities "will explore how we form the places we share."

Mission Neighbourhood – (Re)forming communities, a working title for the eighth OAT that will open in September 2022, aims to build upon "a surging global interest in developing the local environment" that is evident in such ideas as the 15-Minute City in Paris. The theme is certainly timely, given how the coronavirus pandemic has made people working from home more sensitive to their immediate neighborhoods and has also brought to the fore, in Pagh's words, the "significant inequalities when it comes to access to neighborhood qualities."

Yesterday's announcement starts an eighteen-month exploration of partnerships, open calls, debates, research, and other initiatives on the theme, in and beyond Oslo. Open calls will be announced in the fall, "asking for both international examples and visions for specific development areas in Oslo." Like previous Triennales, OAT 2022 will produce a publication; it is intended to "[sum] up ideas and actions," Pagh contends, "for neighborhood thinking and development."

Christian Pagh explains Mission Neighbourhood in a short 90-second film: