Through the presentation of projects in which a stimulating and fruitful collaboration has been achieved, we sought to appeal to professionals of the architectural field by posing before them alternative forms of work. The exhibition embodies the premise that the work of the architect can be enriched in its contact with the methods and the production of the artist, that it has the possibility of not being as strictly subject to the limitations that often constrain the materialization of an idea.

Likewise, we wished to open other routes for the work of contemporary artists, to promote the presence of their work in other spaces, in contexts other than those to which they are usually confined, such as galleries and museums.

We started out from the idea that art in public spaces establishes a different relationship with its audience: it serves the community as a whole contributing to the development of an aesthetic and critical sensibility in its members. Art, within this type of context, is democratic in the sense that it is open to all, even to those not interested in it. If museums are still viewed today as sacred sites and art galleries are also perceived as an elitist territory, both of them establishing a boundary between the work of art and the spectator's access to it, art in public spaces dismantles that boundary.

During the organization of the show we also sought to bear witness to the model of city we would like to leave in trust for our children, and to express our critical stance towards the policy enforced in matters of art in public spaces by the city in which the gallery is located.

With all these criteria in mind, five projects were chosen for the show, adhering to a series of factors. In the first place, we wanted projects that had been built, projects that were explicitly possible, not ideal. Secondly, it seemed important for architects and artists to have worked together on an equal base. That is, that the project should be the result of shared authorship, the encounter of two disciplines forced, in the process, to sacrifice their individual vision, their peculiar mode of making, the very limits that define them, to arrive at a consensus. Having the selection exhibit the wealth and variety of fields in which the collaboration can materialize itself constituted a third factor for our choice. Taking this into consideration, the projects shown belong to different branches: architecture, urban planning, landscaping, urban remodelling. Finally, we were concerned with having the selection be varied at the level of the authors. The projects range from the work of the star architect to that of the city architect, lost in the anonymity of an urban planning team. As to the artists, the project involves an intervention an historical artist such as Dan Flavin, as well as one by a young artist, barely at mid-point in her career, such as Fernanda Fragateiro.

To introduce the catalogue for this exhibition project, which culminated with its presentation at Lisbon's Sala Jorge Vieira, we invited Luis Fernández-Galiano, professor at Madrid's School of Architecture and director of the journal Arquitectura Viva; Mark Wigley, scholar in the theory of architecture and professor at Princeton University; and finally, Luis Enguita, co-curator of the show.