1 Opinion

Cristina Rios Amorim

2 City Cortex: Cork paves the way for the future of cities

3 A conversation about cork

Cork in the cities of the future

The lead story of this issue of Amorim News is City Cortex, the international cultural research programme promoted by Corticeira Amorim and conceived by Guta Moura Guedes, which explores the intersection between cork and contemporary cities. After six years of development, during which we worked in close collaboration with our longstanding partner, experimentadesign, and six renowned design and architecture studios (Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Gabriel Calatrava, Leong Leong, Sagmeister & Walsh and Yves Behar), we presented the first results of the programme in early June, in Lisbon and Almada.

The challenge was simple but demanding - to look closely at cork, scrutinise it, understand it and project a future based on it, taking the material to a new level. Inspired by cork’s unique characteristics, the core objective was to think about how this exceptional material can help shape the future of cities, creating urban landscapes and collective spaces that are more welcoming, comfortable, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing.

The projects were presented to the public on 6 June, as the culmination of a process involving several organisations, many individuals and tremendous talent, vision and dedication. This process fulfilled, and even surpassed, the goal of raising the profile of cork, highlighting its unrivalled sustainability credentials and potential for shaping the future of cities - that we want to be more sustainable, inclusive, creative and safe.

We were all able to take part in the discussion about the role of cork in this context and discover each project created using this incredible material. In a way, this marked a new beginning for cork because we believe that, in Lisbon or anywhere in the world, there will now be even more opportunities for cork that we may not yet be able to imagine, but which, like City Cortex itself, will be born from the intersection of knowledge, innovation and inspiration.

Through these new perspectives, cork is revealing itself in an entirely new way. It questions possibilities, proposes solutions, brings nature into the city and the past into the future, paving the way for more responsible, inclusive and sustainable urban landscapes.

In this edition, we also highlight two important recognitions of our work: World Finance magazine distinguished Corticeira Amorim as the most sustainable company in the wine products sector; and the United Nations Global Compact Network Portugal selected António Rios de Amorim as SDG Pioneer 2024, in the Large Companies category.

We realise that sustainable development is essential to the future of the planet and people, and that our contribution is important. Our culture, practices and results influence and encourage many of our stakeholders to also make a vital contribution to the five dimensions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships. This is a common goal that can only be achieved with everyone’s action and commitment.

Cork paves the way for the future of cities

City Cortex was launched in June. This cultural research programme explores the intersection between cork and contemporary urban settings, involving six leading names from the world of design and architecture who presented eight original projects for public and semi-public spaces in Lisbon, that reinvent cork and expand the possibilities of this material. Cork is a versatile and sustainable material that connects nature to the urban landscape and can help shape the cities of the future, making them more welcoming and inclusive, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing. The City Cortex installations form an open-air museum on the banks of the Tejo river, designed to be seen and touched, transforming this urban zone into a playful space with sustainability at its core.

Nature teaches us to wait for great things to happen. And even though we’re in the city, on a bright June morning in Lisbon, we returned to nature for presentation of City Cortex, the cultural research programme produced by Corticeira Amorim that explores the intersection between cork and contemporary urban contexts. After six years of development, the results of this programme - curated by Guta Moura Guedes, developed by experimentadesign and supported by Artworks - were presented to the public on June 6, in Belém and Trafaria, in a 3-day event that included a visit to Corticeira Amorim and an immersive tour of the cork oak forest at the Herdade de Rio Frio estate.

For several months, the cork installations form part of an authentic open-air museum, designed to be freely discovered on foot, along both banks of the Tejo river. A book will also be published about the projects, which take a new look at cork and its relationship with the urban landscape, and expand the possibilities for its use. The contributions from the six invited studios - Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Gabriel Calatrava, Leong Leong, Sagmeister & Walsh and Yves Behar - do precisely that: using cork’s unique characteristics and intrinsic properties, they take the material to a new level, testing its possibilities. At the same time, the interventions propose a new way of living within the collective space, paving the way for better cities in the future, which, by taking advantage of a material such as cork, will become more comfortable, cosy, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing.

Cork and the city

City Cortex was presented in the auditorium of the National Coach Museum, attended by representatives of the various organisations and partners involved, such as Lisbon City Council and Almada City Council, all the project’s creative teams, cultural and artistic personalities, the national and international press and members of the general public. After speeches by António Rios de Amorim, Chairman and CEO of Corticeira Amorim, and by Guta Moura Guedes, President of experimentadesign, there was a round table moderated by the British writer, editor and curator, Shumon Basar, with an informal and exciting conversation between the six invited design studios about cork and the future of cities.

After the round table, the participants had the chance to discover each of the projects in situ, on a guided tour that followed the walking route designed to discover City Cortex, to see the installations by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Leong Leong and Yves Behar, all in Belém. After crossing the Tejo river, it was possible to see Gabriel Calatrava’s installation, ‘Onda’, located in Trafaria, which is a square that will remain for the city, to be experienced by the community. The Mayor of Almada, Inês de Medeiros, attended this inauguration.

Cork in the museum

The afternoon was reserved for a visit to the three installations created by the duo Sagmeister & Walsh. The President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, accompanied the visit, demonstrating great interest and enthusiasm. The tour began in the pedestrian underpass in the Praça do Império, in Belém, where Stefan Sagmeister’s ‘Life Expectancy’ panel is installed, and ended at the Museum of Popular Art, with presentation of an installation of cork bottles designed by Jessica Walsh, which was the perfect conclusion to this tour dedicated to the encounter between cork and the city, a material that, through City Cortex, blends into the urban fabric.

Closing the circle

From the city centre to the heart of the cork oak forest. The launch of such an ambitious and broad-reaching programme as City Cortex wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the point of origin – to learn about the starting point of the extraordinary raw material that underpins all the programme’s projects. For this reason, the final day of the event was reserved for an immersive visit to Corticeira Amorim’s universe, including a trip to the Herdade de Rio Frio estate, coinciding with one of the cork oak forest’s most magical seasons: the cork harvest. City Cortex’s creative team and various international press organisations were able to witness this unique moment and gain a deeper insight into the entire cork industry and, in particular, Corticeira Amorim’s business profile, activity and ambition, as it embraces new challenges for the future.

A conversation about cork

Six renowned designers and architects, an agent moderateur and one of the most versatile and beautiful materials on the planet. A round table discussion on the City Cortex project and all that cork can bring to cities.

City Cortex aims to encourage innovative thinking and stimulate critical discourse around issues that concern everyone – such as the organisation and future of cities. The round table organised at the launch of this cultural research programme featured the six architecture and design studios involved – Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Gabriel Calatrava, Leong Leong, Sagmeister & Walsh and Yves Behar – in a conversation moderated by British writer, editor and curator, Shumon Basar.

The creative teams involved in this project were very diverse, with different approaches and even from different generations. But, as Shumon Basar emphasises, ‘what they have all tried to do is to experiment with this material and look for new kinds of proposals and new kinds of solutions for public spaces, which are also under threat in many parts of the world. For that reason, it's very important that city administrators and people who make decisions about their future are confronted with imaginative experimental projects that present strong arguments.’

In a packed auditorium, the conversation between the designers and Shumon Basar generated considerable interest, and would certainly have gone on for longer had the day’s agenda not been so full. Accustomed to reflecting and writing about existing and imagined cities – Shumon Basar was an excellent

Shumon Basar moderated and asked all the speakers to talk about their projects and share their vision of cork, urban contexts and the relationship between the two.

In his closing remarks, Basar said: ‘Cities are facing genuine stress and pressure, especially successful cities, which have too many new arrivals. If you have too many people in too little space, you face a density problem. I think cork is an interesting way of thinking about this problem, and how to make crowded places more liveable and pleasant and, in a way, more inviting.’

In an extremely dynamic conversation, there were several inspired and even humorous moments. Eduardo Souto de Moura described cork as a ‘remarkable material’ and confided that he realised how architecture can take advantage of the fact that cork is so pleasant to touch when he visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. At another point in the round table, Gabriel Calatrava referred to his project – a community square in Trafaria – as an attempt to expand public space by making it ‘softer’ through cork, something that is increasingly necessary in today’s ‘hard’ cities. Yves Behar also agreed with this perspective: his Port_All project is, in fact, a gateway to a more welcoming and peaceful space, a refuge that takes advantage of cork’s insulating characteristics – ‘a material from the past that is actually the material of the future’ – to create a space of recollection that contrasts with the urban context.

Shumon Basar saved one last provocation for last: are the designers more enthusiastic or more apprehensive about the future of cities?

The answers were surprising. Perhaps inspired by the characteristics of cork – resilience, protection, stability, softness – they envisioned a much brighter future for cities than we might expect.