“How heavy is a City?” This question served as the inspiration for the 2025 edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, prompting a profound reflection on the contemporary challenges facing human spaces, at a time when the city can be considered co-extensive with the technosphere. This new emerging planetary paradigm defines the Anthropocene.

This perspective was explored through the invitation of various international research groups. Among these is the CREF (Enrico Fermi Research Centre) Laboratory of Applied Physics for Cultural Heritage, which presented a video installation, curated by Hilla Laufer, within the exhibition section “Spectre.”

The exhibition, dedicated to the contemporary applications of spectral and multispectral imaging technologies, illustrates how human technologies are reshaping the very notion of space, occupying almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum. This ranges from vegetation detection via infrared and near-infrared to remote sensing and Earth Observation, from LED light pollution to ultraviolet antimicrobial lights, all the way to X-rays, gamma rays, and muography.

The Interdisciplinary Approach of CREF

CREF’s work redefines the perception of cultural heritage and its complex relationship with technology and the urban environment. Many cities are true living museums, tangible chronicles of human activity where traces of the past are visibly stratified.

Utilising experimental and machine learning techniques, researchers Giulia Festa and Claudia Scatigno, with their research team, analyse cultural heritage, identifying microstructural and physico-chemical data to reconstruct macroscopic information. This activity provides invaluable insights into the history, function, and context of objects, which are essential for their preservation.

Cultural heritage encompasses an extraordinary variety of materials, each with its own unique story, necessitating integrated approaches. The combination of advanced analytical techniques and computational tools is opening new frontiers in the field. In this context, collaboration between disciplines such as physics, chemistry, archaeology, materials science, and data science is crucial. The integration of complex data is increasingly reliant on computational methods: in particular, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are revolutionizing the sector, allowing for the analysis of large datasets and the detection of patterns, correlations, and classifications that would otherwise be inaccessible.

The topics addressed by the CREF Laboratory are highly interdisciplinary and concern aspects such as attribution, manufacturing techniques, state of conservation, and potential interactions with restoration materials under development.

The “Spectre” exhibition, curated by John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog of Territorial Agency, is open to the public at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture of Lisbon until January 2026.