Many anthologies, analytical and critical essays, journal articles and monographs, exhibitions, conferences and lectures on Távora have been produced and published over the years, most of them in Portugal and in Portuguese. Few of these, however, have been translated and published internationally[01] .
The authors of this publication, convinced of the relevance of Távora’s teaching and the values that it can still convey to new generations of architects, have undertaken a path of research to communicate the profoundly pedagogical value of his “making architecture for living”, in adherence to his writings on the strong link between modernity and tradition, the humanity and vitality of architectural space, and the nature of spatial composition.
A note. The translation of Fernando Távora’s original texts and the use of the images published in this volume were kindly granted by Fundação Marques da Silva, with which we have had a productive and lively dialogue since 2020. We thank the management, and in particular professor Luís Urbano, Vice-Chairman of the Foundation’s Governing Board, and Dra. Paula Abrunhosa, for their generous and constant collaboration. Special thanks to our colleagues Francesco Cancelliere, Rafael Sousa Santos and Debora Zaccarelli, who conducted the archival research. Our thanks also to the Departamento de Arquitectura da Universidade de Coimbra, and the Mantova Campus and Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) of the Politecnico di Milano for their active support of this publication.
A recommendation. Reading Távora’s texts in Portuguese, its original language that conveys the tone, timbre, colour, melody and rhythm, it’s an invaluable experience for everyone who makes research
and admires the culture of that country. Every word, every single accent of the tongue and every single suspension the eye grasps directly on the written page express the great challenge of reconstructing, with new words and a new syntax, in Italian and then in English, the genuine and straightforward authenticity of Távora’s theoretical thought and design practice; of Távora’s soul.
Each of Távora’s words, here diligently translated into international English by Victor M. Ferreira, was carefully chosen by Távora and inserted into his architectural discourse with a sonority that is, and can only be, Portuguese. Therefore, even in the deep-rooted Portugueseness of his language, we recommend that our readers grasp the internationality and extraordinary relevance of Fernando Távora.
[01] I am pleased to refer Italian readers to the Italian volume edited by Carlotta Torricelli, Fernando Távora. "Dell’organizzazione dello spazio, Nottetempo", Milan 2021.
The nation builds. The nation builds immensely. The nation builds more and more. Houses, factories and schools are erected – in cities, towns and villages. However, it pains us greatly to notice that this enormous building activity has become distorted in its architectural expression. The building processes, in both their technical and financial aspect, adapt to needs, though at great cost. Still, the style “sprung forth from the People and from the Earth with the spontaneity and the life of a flower”, the “new character of new conditions” – these do not emerge. Basic prejudices have thwarted the most well-intentioned attempts to bring them about.
Nonetheless, a trail has yet to be blazed: this is pointed out in this essay, precisely the only one that can lead a living Portuguese architecture to flourish. Its author, Fernando Távora, a graduate in Architecture at the Porto School of Fine Arts, shows courage and conviction in highlighting errors of the present and paths for the future. “A responsible, concise, well oriented and realistic work is required”, impelled by a new spirit. “Everything needs to be redone, starting from the beginning”.
This essay was first published in the weekly ALÈO on November 10th, 1945. Now rewritten and expanded by the author, this article appropriately opens the publication of the “Cadernos De Arquitetura” (Architecture Journal).
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a feeling that Portuguese architecture was losing what today is conventionally known as character; the perhaps diminishing aspect that was manifested among us was merely a reflection of what was going on throughout Europe during that tremendous period. It was perhaps an indecisive and certainly devastating period while creating a few solutions that we have already made use of and which will be confirmed in better times. The problem was put forth to Architects and particularly to Esthetes as being very serious, as they were witnessing the disappearance of old, established shapes without anyone being to react with movements that would occur. If they were unable to solve, at least they would seek to reduce the crisis that inexorably spread. Romanticism, which was still simmering in those spirits, established that they should look to the past to find every lesson containing the solution to their problem. Here they are, armed with History, armed with a false interpretation of ancient Architecture to solve active current issues. The highly superficial study of our past Architecture and, in practical terms, the unrelated and illogical use of a few shapes from that same Architecture, and here is the therapy used in order to heal every ill. A serious ailment was treated using an even more serious illness. A sad reality thus emerged from reformers’ praiseworthy intention. The Old-fashioned Portuguese House which, within civil architecture, is the brainchild of that archeological orientation did not bring anything new to Portugal; by contrast, it ended up delaying the entire possible development of our Architecture[01].
Abroad, the foundation was being laid for the so-called Modern Architecture; however, regarding the only Architecture that we could sincerely engage in, we will contrast this by saying that Portuguese architects geared their activities in their inglorious yearning to create a localized and independent Architecture that was altogether incompatible with the way the world surrounding them was thought through, felt and experienced. It could be said that it was an Architecture of archeologists, never an Architecture of architects. Major problems were not studied, certainly more to blame on the time of their occurrence than on men. Thus, as could only be expected, no satisfactory solutions emerged; rather, if the start of chaos existed, it tragically increased, with yet another “style” that will be very hard to ban from our Architecture.
Any style emerges from the People and from the Earth, spontaneous and lovely like a flower; also, the People and the Earth are present in the style they have created with that ingenuity and that unawareness characterizing every action that is truly felt, whether by a man or by a community, by a life or by many generations. The reaction of the Oldfashioned Portuguese House’s creators lacked any genuine living sense.
Through strange reasonings, it was established (this is the term used) that our “traditional” architecture was characterized by a certain number of decorative motifs whose application would be enough to produce Portuguese houses. Hence the emergence here of a new kind of academicism: such an attitude of the spirit is understood to be that for which Art can be coded into eternal shapes, in accordance with set and unchangeable rules. These men who so firmly believed and who were so bound to History were unaware of how to reap any fruit from it; that’s because History counts to the extent that it could solve presentday problems and insofar as it becomes an aid instead of an obsession. Architecture cannot and should not be subjected to motifs, to more or less curious details, to archeological “Byzantine references”. The designers of those “Portuguese-style houses” have forgotten and still forget that the traditional shapes of the entire art of edifying do not represent a decorative whim or a Baroque manifestation. From the start, and here with its genuine sense, architectural shapes result from conditions imposed on material according to the function whereby they are required to perform and even a spirit befitting of anyone who is active on the same material. Hence, in every good Architecture, there is a dominating logic, a profound reason in every one of its parts, an intimate and constant force that unifies and binds every shape to itself, turning every building into a living body, a body with a soul and language all its own.
Now, none of this gave rise to the “Portuguese House” movement, which (we could fearlessly state) was dominated by the architectural lie typical of poor works and bad artists. Whereas societies and men frown upon the lie, it is paradoxical – though significant – that a concept of Architecture that is being protected is false, one which does not correspond to any Portuguese truth and which, as such, should be altogether banned the same way one seeks to eliminate from society any element that is harmful because it is a lie. It can be said that there are ethics in Architecture, and if Man is the scale unit whereby these is measured, these should call for the same qualities that we all require of a true Man. Hence, the conclusion that protecting the current concept of the “Portuguese House” means legalizing the lie, and a society that proceeds in such a manner, in any of its active forms, is a failed society.
FOR A PORTUGUESE ARCHITECTURE TODAY
We refer to the dangers that the past constituted for solving the problems in question, particularly given the way that past was used. Today’s houses will have to spring forth from us; that is, they will need to represent our needs, result from our conditions and of a whole set of circumstances within which we live, in both space and time. Thus, being
ON THE ORGANIZATION OF SPACE
"DA ORGANIZAÇÃO DO ESPAÇO"
Fernando Távora, 1962
INTRODUCTION
This essay, which is presented as a dissertation as part of the application for work as a group 1 Professor at the Porto College of Fine Arts, aims to highlight a set of problems that its author deems to be entirely current, as well as to point out aspects of the stance to be taken by the architect when faced with such problems.
Beginning with a chapter addressing general aspects of spatial planning, the work gradually limits the scope of its objectives until it specifically focuses on the contemporary Portuguese space in terms of architecture and urbanism.
The author is aware of his limitation to address a matter of such importance; he dares to do so solely because of his awareness of the need for such a topic to be addressed, since he feels that one of greatest battles to be waged in our day is precisely that of harmoniously planning that space which nature has generously endowed us with. In this battle, the victory constitutes a “sine qua non” of man’s happiness.
We believe that the interest that the work may comprise lies in the system of relations we seek to forge, with the assurance that the problems of spatial planning are of a much broader range than that which generally attributed to them, while needing to overcome the limited concepts or the preconceived notions generally used to focus on such problems.
We are encouraged in the hope that this essay will make readers more aware of their role in spatial planning as well as of the importance that creating more harmonious shapes can represent in their lives, whether as individuals or as members of a society.
DIMENSIONS, RATIOS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZED SPACE
When we mark a point on a white sheet of paper, we could conventionally say that this point organizes said sheet, such a surface, such a space, two-dimensionally, as it is common knowledge that its position can be defined by two values (x, y) relative to a given system of coordinates. If, however, such a point is designed to be raised, separated from that very sheet of paper, we could just as conventionally say that it organizes the space three-dimensionally, given that its position can also be defined, this time using three values (x, y, z), relative to a given system of coordinates. Still, there is a third possibility, where that very point is not still, not static, but moving. In such a case, we would need to add a fourth-dimension t (time) to the three values or dimensions (x, y, z) that define it. Thus, we would have a set of dimensions that enable locating that system of coordinates.
When referring to two- and three-dimensional spatial planning, as above, we use the term “conventionally”, since it is common knowledge that the fourth dimension (time) cannot be pushed aside in any case. Today, this is a common truth thanks to the theory of relativity with its “time-space” notion. Thus, speaking of two- and three-dimensional spatial planning means taking conventional action, which is useful for certain classification but which does not match reality. However, because volumes are enveloped in surfaces, which are generated with lines and these with points, then, by generalizing what was said, it can be concluded that the volumes, surfaces and lines, just like the points, constitute spatial planning events, which are generally known as shapes.
Shapes thus organize space. However, just like the sheet of paper we initially referred to and where we mark a point is a space that constitutes shape, which is like a negative of the same point, then, by generalizing in like manner, we could state that that which we call space is also shape, a negative or a mold of shapes that our eyes grasp. That is because, in a visual sense, which is what we need to consider in this case, space is that which our eyes are unable to grasp through natural processes. Therefore, in visual terms, while we could consider that shapes enliven space and live off of it, we should never forget that, in a more real context, within a more real context, that same space also comprises a shape, such that what we call space consists of matter, not just the shapes found therein and occupying it, precisely as our eyes would lead us to assume.
This so often-forgotten notion that the space that separates – and joins – shapes is also a shape, is a key notion, since this is what enables us to become fully aware that there are no isolated shapes and that there is always a relation, be it among the shapes we see taking up the space or between them and the space which, though we do not see it, we know constitutes shape – a negative or a mold – of apparent shapes.
Still, visually grasping the space entails an observer who can do so, while considering the existence of said observer serves to enrich the dimensioning of space, given the creation of various situations. And so, for instance, in the theoretical case of a space three-dimensionally organized by one point, we have two possibilities: the observer either remains stationary or is moving. This means that, in either case, the observer sees the organized space in different ways: statically organized (by convention) in the former; dynamically organized in the latter. And, in the case of the space organized four-dimensionally, the same possibilities can be put forth: stationary observer or moving observer, while creating new situations in the space-observer relationship.
The world of shapes offers infinite and progressive wealth to man: every day, their study is shown to be increasingly captivating and necessary, given the growing awareness of the importance that shape takes on relative to the human existence. It is important to point out, even in passing, that visually grasped shapes are progressively becoming enriched, thanks to the techniques created by contemporary science; we will cite, for example, the new worlds of shapes revealed by the perspective which, through immense expansion, enables discovering completely ignored shapes of the normal vision of our eyeball as well as those revealed using new means of locomotion in space that have created possibilities entailing viewpoints from which, even while using normal vision, new shapes are presented for man’s consideration.
On the scale of man, and with every limitation that a classification always involves, perhaps it is possible to basically distinguish typical cases of natural shapes – that is, those in whose definition or creation man does not take part – and artificial shapes or those in whose existence man actively participates. Borderline cases without a doubt, since man himself, as a shape (that is, in his physical reality) is a blend of a work of nature and a work of himself, while it is difficult to distinguish what is credited to one or the other, even while examining the phenomenon on a human scale, as previously mentioned. Otherwise, we will have to consider man, in his form, as a complete work of nature. This premise should be ruled out, since we basically aim to study spatial planning phenomena with man as the agent thereof.
Yet, even on this basis or within this partial view of spatial planning phenomena, we cannot rule out either natural shapes (and even those that can be regarded as pure, that is, untouched by human hands) or their relationships with human works. Such relationships are so intimate, infinite and endless that we cannot know where some end and others begin.
While moving his body, making his house, plowing a field, writing a letter, getting dressed, painting, driving his vehicle, or erecting a bridge, we could say that, by living, man organizes his surrounding space, creating shapes: some apparently static, and others clearly dynamic.
As man is, so, too, does he organize his space; a harmonious space is befitting of an individual and of a society in balance; an organized space in disharmony is befitting of an individual and of a society in a state of imbalance. A man-made shape is an extension of himself – with his good and bad qualities.
Every man creates shapes, every man organizes space. And whereas shapes are contingent on circumstance, they also create circumstance, or, better yet, while spatial planning is conditioned, it is also a conditioning factor.
Given his profession, the architect is eminently a creator of shapes, a spatial planner; however, the shapes he creates, the spaces he organizes, while maintaining relations with the circumstance, create circumstance and, while there is a possibility of choosing and selecting in the architect’s actions, there is inevitably a plight.
Because he creates positive or negative circumstance, his actions can be beneficial or harmful; thus, his decisions must not be made carelessly or in view of of a partial view of the problems or due to a selfish attitude of sheer personal satisfaction. An architect is, first and foremost, a man, one who uses his profession as an instrument to benefit other men and the society to which he belongs.
Because he is a man and since his actions are not inevitably determined, he has to seek to create those shapes that provide the best service, both to society and to his fellowman. As such, his actions will entail not only the plight of choosing, but also a meaning, a target, a constant longing to serve.
His spheres of action are diverse – because just as diverse are the facets of organized space. He designs and erects buildings, devotes himself to land-use planning at various scales, while designing furnishings.
For him, however, projecting, planning, designing, should all merely mean coming up with the proper and correct shape, the one that efficiently and beautifully achieves the summary between what is necessary and what is possible, bearing in mind that such shape will comprise a life of its own while constituting circumstance.
Thus being the case, for the architect, projecting, planning and designing should not result in the creation of shapes devoid of meaning, imposed by the whim of fashion or by a whim of any other nature. Rather, the shapes he will create should result from a sensible balance between his personal vision and the circumstance surrounding him; to such end, he needs to get to know it intensely, so intensely that knowing and being are blended together.
And from the circumstance he will have to counter the negative aspects while valuing the positive ones; after all, this means educating and collaborating. And we will also collaborate and educate with his achieved work.
Therefore, his stance will remain that of a permanent student and of a permanent educator; as such, he will be able to hear, consider, choose and also chastise.
Let him no presume to be the demiurge, the one and only, the genius of organized space, as others also take part in spatial planning. We need to heed them and collaborate them in common works.
On top of his specialized preparation (and because the architect is, first and foremost, a man), he needs to try to get to know not only the problems of his most direct collaborators, but also those of man in general. That, along with an intense and needed specialization, he should set up a profound and indispensable humanism. Thus should the architect be – a man among men – a spatial planner – creator of happiness.
[01] Abel Salazar - “O que é a arte?” - Coimbra1940, pp. 65-80.
[02] Francisco de Hollanda – “Da Pintura Antigua”, ed. commented by Joaquim de Vasconcelos –Porto – 1930, p. 172.
[03] Transcribed in Eric Gill – “Last essays” –London – 1942, p. 55.
[04] José Ortega y Gasset – “La rebelíon de las masas” – Madrid – 1943, pp. 127-135.
[05] “L’originalité des cultures, son rôle dans la compréhension internationale” – Unesco –1953.
[06] Op. cit. – pp. 113-125.
[07] Transcribed in Jacques Maritain – “Arte y escolástica” (Spanish transl.) – Buenos Aires – 1945, p. 163.
[08] Transcribed in Herbert Read – “Art and Industry” – London – 1934, p. 43.
[09] Transcribed in Maximilien Gouthier – “Le Corbusíer” – Paris – 1944, p. 90.
[10] See Jean Prévost – “Eiffel” – Paris – 1929, pp. 38-40.
[11] Transcript in Herbert Read – op. cit. – pp. 54 and 55.
[12] Jean Fourastié – “La civilisation de 1960” – Paris –1950, p. 115.
[13] Reinaldo dos Santos – “Conferências de Arte” – Series 2 – Lisbon – 1943, pp. 7-36.
[14] To paraphrase the title of the book by J. F. Gravier – “Paris et le désert français” – Paris – 1947.
[15] Public Works Ministry – “Plano diretor do desenvolvimento urbanístico da região de Lisboa” – Lisbon – 1960, p. 13.
[16] Opinion of the Corporative Chamber – op. cit. – p. 60.
[17] Published under the title “Arquitectura popular em Portugal” – Lisbon – 1961.
[18] Francisco Pereira de Moura – “Estagnação ou crescimento da economia portuguesa?” – in “Revista do Gabinete de Estudos Corporativos”, No. 26 – 1956; p. 137.
[19] M. de Santos Loureiro – “Problemática do desenvolvimento regional” – INII – Lisbon –1961, p. 71.
[20] H. C. Dent – “Education in transition” –London – 1944, p. IX.
[21] Term used by F. Chueca Goitia – “Invariantes castizos de la arquitectura española” – Madrid – 1947, to replace constants, “a more currently used but less accurate term”.
I met the Architect Fernando Távora in 1972, as Project II Professor chair. Távora arrived at noon, still with damp hair, and explained the theme: an individual Shelter designed with minimal areas.
He politely apologized for not arriving at 9 o’clock and began his first lesson: Architecture is a discipline in which you cannot spend your life at the School or in the Atelier. You have to have time to “look”, “see”, study and think. For example, I like to think in the morning, surrounded by fog, and supported by the impulsion of Archimedes, until the water runs out, according to the principle of communicating vessels.
Right there, we noticed the first connections between Physics and Architecture and the reason for the delay. Days passed, Távora wanted to see drawings, it could be seen in his eyes.
Távora was fed up with General Assemblies on the Teaching of Architecture and coffee talks about Alexander, “The City is not a Tree” and the “Class Struggle”. Távora was impatient by not seeing drawings. I spent the night drawing with a Rotring , as I had heard that Escola do Porto was a strict school.
Távora, in front of the blueprint (he always started with the blueprints), unsheathed a Parker 51 with the nib already worn down by the “métier”, and began to scribble. “There’s nothing sadder than walking into a house across from the garage, with hoses uncoiled, flat tires and a pile of renegade furniture”. Távora advanced to the plan with the Parker, superimposed circles and tried to explain to me that there was no room for so many things, and continued to scribble... “And now, what do I
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DISTENDED TIME [01]
João Mendes Ribeiro [02]
I was a student of Fernando Távora in the 1st year of the architecture course at the Porto School of Fine Arts. That same year, my interest in Távora’s work was awakened, with the visit to two works that left an indelible mark on me and which, in some way, were always present throughout my school career. This is the Tennis Pavilion at Quinta da Conceição (1956-1960) and Ofir’s holiday home (1957-1958), which I highlight for the particular alliance between delicacy and strength, for the simplicity and naturalness with which modern design let itself be contaminated by traditional forms. It is, therefore, an architecture that summons memories, affectivities, relationships and analogies, without making of the reference a cliché and without imposing closed readings. Later, as his assistant at the Department of Architecture at the University of Coimbra (1991-1998), I had the privilege of witnessing his sensitivity and wisdom in the way he faced life and, consequently, architecture, since for him both were are closely connected to his way of being in the world. Távora liked to work from life and from what moves him emotionally. For Távora, all projects, regardless of their success, are always serious passions.
The expression “style does not count, what does is the relationship with life”, which he often used, precisely reflects his clairvoyance in relation to architecture and its ability to create or evoke situations which people could easily identify with. It also translates the aim of taking architecture to reflect and participate in everyday life.
From the many conversations we had, I particularly retained his profoundly humanist attitude, which was felt in his attachment to life and in his affection for “the things of the world”, which he observed with special sensitivity and perspicacity (also through drawing).
it is possible to build contemporary architecture without denying the history or culture of places, starting from the clarification of the past from a current perspective.
That was above all his lesson – to encourage us to see the existing in a different (new) way and, in a gesture of continuity, to find in it the answers to the present time.
Witnessing the continuity with the work of Fernando Távora, I highlight a recent project in my journey, due to the incidence of the theme and potential convergence with the foundations of his legacy. It is a small house in Ourense (Spain) [IMG 06] that was built from the rehabilitation of old rural buildings.
The project develops from the site, with the approach to the external space, in a first instance, and the survey in drawing of the constructions that would come to constitute the centre of the project, in a later moment. The methodology tends to be experimental and not much canonical – the usual separation between the conception (drawing) and construction phases, gives rise to a permanently open project, in which construction takes place simultaneously with the project. The pre-existences, which are revealed during the course of the work, dictate the rhythm of the work and are a pretext for constant inflections in the project, in order to integrate them into the design of the spaces. Architecture thus clearly becomes a process. The extended time of this process adds an intangible value to the work, as it allows, on the one hand, to read with greater clarity the relationship between the pre-existence and the new interventions and, on the other hand, to redesign them, repeatedly, ensuring that none overlaps or annuls the other.
It is from this delicate balance that the project is built, (re)inventing the pre-existence – in a process of (re)signification of the ruin and, simultaneously, of integration of new forms of life. It operates from preexisting elements, in order to (re)visit them according to contemporary architectural codes.
I believe I can infer that this condition is not completely dissimilar to learning from Távora and that it stems from the thorough study of his work. It also stems from the observation of his humanist stance, which sees the architect as a “creator of happiness” and identifies in architecture the place of contention, but also, and above all, the place where freedom is experienced.
[01] This text develops the article Fernando Távora: the challenge of limits, by the same author, published in the magazine Rua Larga, n. 11, Rectory of the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, January 2006.
[02] João Mendes Ribeiro was a student of Fernando Távora in the 1st year of the architecture programme at the Porto School of Fine Arts and, between 1991-1998, an assistant in the Department of Architecture at FCTUC.
FERNANDO TÁVORA AS A PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA, 1994-2000
Lobo [01]
Fernando Távora was one of the “founding fathers” of the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra (along with Alexandre Alves Costa, Domingos Tavares, Raul Hestnes Ferreira, Gonçalo Byrne and a few others), which started functioning in 1988-89[02]. This was the first new public architecture school in Portugal in more than a hundred years, after the creation of the Academies (and later Schools) of Beaux-Arts of Lisbon and Porto, in the 19th century.
At the start of his collaboration at the University of Coimbra, Fernando Távora (born in 1923) was already in his late-sixties. He had already had a long and distinguished architectural career (which was still very active)[03] as well as an extended participation as Professor and member of the board of the architecture course at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto (ESBAP), from which the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP) gained autonomy in 1979[04].
The author of these lines was one of the first eight students who finished the University of Coimbra’s architecture course on 16th December 1994, through the public discussion of his Final Course thesis (Prova Final de Licenciatura). I had been a student of Fernando Távora and of his assistant lecturer, João Mendes Ribeiro, in the Design Studio of the 4th year (“Projeto IV”) in 1991-92. The exercise of the Design Studio was to replace, with a different configuration (in the same urban location and with exactly the same programmatic requirements), a set of five residential towers built in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s on the top of the Conchada hill in Coimbra, which Távora considered had a negative impact on the city’s profile as seen from the West.
Later on, I became involved in teaching after applying for a role as a “monitor” on the architecture course in October 1994. I became
Rui
an assistant lecturer in April 1995 through a open public call and competition. From the beginning, and for the next six years, up until July 2000, I collaborated with Fernando Távora in the new curricular units of “History of Classical Art & Culture” and “History of Contemporary Art & Culture”, created as two complementary introductory modules, for first year architecture students, in the academic exercise of 199495.These semester units replaced a formerly annual one of “History of Art”, which had been assured by an assistant of the History of Art Department – António Filipe Pimentel – since 1988.
The syllabi of both units were redefined, and a renewed handwritten elaboration was sent by Távora, through a fax communication of 18th September 1996, of which a copy still survives [IMG 11]. I have also kept the book of summaries of classes given in 1995-96. Both syllabi remained more or less unaltered until July 2000, when Távora ended his classes at Coimbra. Video footage of some of his classes was also made, although of poor quality given the available resources at the time [IMG 12-19] .
The two-hour classes, for around 50 students, were scheduled on Thursday mornings. Sometimes Távora travelled to Coimbra with other professors from Porto, such as Alexandre Alves Costa, who also had classes on Thursday – and to whom Távora had suggested, a few years before, that a curricular unit of History of Portuguese Architecture at FAUP be organized, which Alves Costa did (I was also Alves Costa’s assistant lecturer back then, for this specific curricular unit, after it was established in Coimbra). At other times Távora would travel with one or two of his collaborators from the office, since he had three important works under construction in Coimbra in the same period. He would use the afternoons to visit the worksites of the Civil Engineering Department (1991-2000) at the University’s new technological campus, the 8th May Square in the lower town (1992-1997), or the Law Faculty auditorium (1993-2000) attached to the University Palace, which was based on the model of the Greek bouleuterion.
The syllabus of “History of Classical Art & Culture” comprised four main items: Egypt, Greece, Rome and, finally, the classical Renaissance. For each of the three ancient civilizations, the territory was the starting point, then religion and society, after which came the architectural typologies, construction techniques, other art forms and specific case studies. The pyramids of Saqqara and Giza, the temples of Djoser and of Karnak, the palace of Knossos, the treasury of Atreus, the sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia, the Parthenon and the Acropolis, the Athenian Agora, Miletus and Timgad, the Roman house, the Forum of Trajan, the Pantheon, the Villa Adriana, were all case studies meticulously analyzed by Távora in his classes – through an introductory talk and handmade drawings on the blackboard, which he did while holding a reference
book in his left hand [SEE
12]. Sometimes he would bring touristic guide-maps he had acquired on his numerous travels, such as a big plan of the Acropolis, with the buildings shown in 3D perspective, which he would unfold and explain to the class.
He would finish the semester normally with three classes on the Renaissance, one on Brunelleschi and Alberti, another on Michelangelo and Mannerism, and yet another on Serlio, Palladio and Vignola, on architectural treatises and the spread of classicism. For this last class he would bring a gym bag full of treatises he had at home, mainly the edition of Vignola he had used while training to become an architect at the School of Beaux-Arts, Perrault’s Vitruvius and also an original of Diego de Sagredo’s "Medidas del Romano", although I cannot recall the edition (whether it was from Toledo, 1526, or from Lisbon, 1541 or 1542).
His main bibliography included Bannister Fletcher’s "History of Architecture", Summerson’s "The classical language in Architecture", Doxiadis’ "Architectural space in ancient Greece", W.L. MacDonald’s "The architecture of the Roman Empire" and Norberg Schulz’s "La Signification dans l’Architecture Occidentale", amongst other and beside Taschen’s “Architecture of the World” series, including the books on Egypt, Greece and The Roman Empire.
The exercise for evaluation consisted of a report on a given theme, that students had to do in the time span of two weeks, always in the same format: three handwritten pages (A4) and a fourth page of handmade drawings. There was a “normal” evaluation in FebruaryMarch and an “appeal” evaluation in September.
Professor Távora normally wrote down the theme of the examination report on a piece of paper, sometimes with added drawings [IMG 20 AND 21], and I would prepare the formal exam statement on an A4 page. Some example themes can be given:
- Greece: sanctuaries, temples and orders.
- The Parthenon and the Acropolis.
- Rome: the Greek heritage and its legacy for the Renaissance [IMG 20] .
- “The Order”: its creation and development in Greco-Roman architectural culture.
- Greek and Roman architecture: creation, continuity and change.
- Territory and architecture in Greece and Rome: identities and differences.
- Egypt, Greece, Rome: three buildings, three cultures: society and territory, forms and spaces, construction [IMG 21] .
- The place, the time, the architecture: Egypt, Greece and Rome [COPY OF STUDENT'S REPORT, IMG 12][05] .
Fernando Távora with drawing of the world map. Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra, late 1997 (videorecording caption)
Fernando Távora, handwritten document with theme for the final semester examination report of History of Classical Art & Culture: “Rome: the Greek heritage and the legacy for the Renaissance” (9th October 1995)
Fernando Távora, handwritten document with theme for the final semester examination report of History of Classical Art & Culture: “Egypt, Greece, Rome: three buildings, three cultures. Society and territory, forms and spaces, construction” (March 1999)
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Fernando Távora, handwritten document with theme for the final semester examination report of History of Contemporary Art & Culture: “Hadrian / Villa Adriana. Louis XIV / Palace of Versailles. Similarities / Differences” (20th June, 1995)
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Fernando Távora, handwritten document with theme for the final semester examination report of History of Contemporary Art & Culture: “Hadrian | Villa Adriana. Louis XIV | Palace of Versailles. Similarities | Differences” (20th June, 1995)
I make no claim to be able to summarise the historical and cultural landscape of Portugal in the first decades of the 20th century, nor to determine the description of the Portuguese master, which I leave to the scholars who have studied these topics for years and to whose important works I refer the most attentive and curious readers, but only to define the background against which the figure of Fernando Luís Cardoso de Meneses de Tavares e Távora (Fernando Távora, Porto, 25 August 1923 –Matosinhos, 3 September 2005) stands out, since it is not just important but essential to outline the context in which he thought, worked and taught, in order to know and understand his teaching.
I would start here.
I would start, that is, with the young student who, towards the end of his academic training, expounded lucid and disenchanted thoughts on the condition of architecture in his country, on the critical issues and errors produced by a misinterpretation of History in architectural design, and on errors and critical issues that spill over not so much into books, but much more dramatically into inhabited spaces, particularly into the spaces of everyday, domestic life.
It is indeed ‘living’ that interested him, first as a young student, and later as a teacher. Domestic spaces provide the most fertile ground for testing and experimenting with theoretical statements and professional practice, and History and people are the most important referents of every act of design: it is in them that this book seeks the reasons for Távora’s contemporaneity. Let’s have a look to the context.
Context. It has to be considered that during the Fifties and the Sixties, through to the beginning of the Seventies, Portugal was politically locked into the tight grip of Salazar’s Estado Novo dictatorship. António de Oliveira Salazar, from 1928 and in the short period of five years,
succeeded in ascending to absolute power after the deep economic and political crises that followed to the First World War.
Regarding culture, the salazarist regime pushed for isolation and slowdown, a strategy that made any evolutive or emancipated action easier to control and repress, fearing that any kind of contact with the outside world might trigger more accelerated and independent rhythm of life. For this reason, the country was subject to a kind of “containment” and segregation, aimed to a slow “awakening of minds” meant to inspire the Lusitanian soul” [02]. As for the arts, the regime operated through the so-called "Policy of Spirit" (Política do Espírito), the state propaganda which turned the programs and artistic values into promotional tools, more oriented towards “showing forms” than “expressing contents”.
Finally, in the fields of architecture and urban planning, a massive program of building and restoration activity was implemented: ancient monumental buildings were recovered, while new infrastructures and public buildings were promoted in order to provide the country with artworks mainly based on the style and canon of the architecture of the XVII Century and the Romanesque art, regarded as symbolic of a reactionary academicism and of a heroic a glorious past that could convey the national. Portuguese culture, with its historic and vernacular character.
The residential models that were encouraged by the regime and that led to the construction of several social housing interventions, were based on a peculiar interpretation of the old institution of the family as an autonomous nucleus, independent and isolated, as well as on the fostering of individually-owned dwelling unit, with its own kitchen garden and orchard and vegetable yard, combined into recognizable urban« neighbourhoods, a kind or “rural villages into the city”. The renowned architect Raúl Lino and his studies on the typical Portuguese houses represented a relevant strategic tool, in the hands of the Estado Novo, that modified and manipulated, and often distorted and misinterpreted the original message, with the sole aim of the political propaganda.
An entire sequence of events marked the beginning of a radical twist, that would allow the Country to enter into a new phase of its urban and architectural development: in 1948, the 1st National Congress of Architecture (I Congresso Nacional de Arquitectura), mainly focused on the housing problem, gave many architects the opportunity of showing their frustration with the dominant nationalist formalism; the publication of the Athens’s Chart, and later of many masterpieces of modern architecture, on the magazine Arquitectura, issued in Lisbon and directed by Keil do Amaral; the echoes of the international debate and the experience of the Organization of Modern Architects (ODAM), attended by several architects from the North of Portugal, among them Távora himself.
Thought. Portugal in the early 20th century, the years in which the young Fernando Távora made his appearance on the cultural and
architectural scene, was a country isolated from international cultural, political and social events, and this marginality gave a unique rhythm to the timelines and approaches of its cultural development process. The authoritarian regime, which shaped the political, economic, social and cultural life of those years, aimed to restore the country to the grandeur of the heroic past of colonial conquests and, with the Portuguese World Exhibition (Lisbon, 1940), expressed its desire to show the power of history and colonisation. From that event sprang the image of a multifaceted and culturally productive Portugal, an experimenter in new and diverse architectural languages and novel approaches to the themes of space and time which, however, were always characterised by a two-way flow between the motherland and the colonies. This kind of closed circuit resulted in an inevitable blindness to what was emerging in the cultural sphere, and a certain isolation in the architectural debate animating Europe at the time[03].
Fernando Távora’s architectural training took place between 1941 and 1945 at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto (ESBAP). The pressure by the dictatorial regime towards conservative attitudes had steered teaching towards the strict classical tradition handed down by history, and produced an environment closed to cultural innovation, in a kind of discord between the study of the past and modern life. Távora therefore, from his university years onwards, expressed deep uncertainty about the traditional role of history in architectural design, recognising it instead as a powerful tool of social significance for transforming the present. His thinking thus outlined the profile of the new architect his era so sorely needed: “At every moment I feel the absence of the ‘architect’ and at every moment I think of the ‘architect’ I would like to be. I live in this struggle between reality and a dream, wanting to be what I am and not being what I should be”[04].
This opinion pushed him inevitably into research for new ideas, knowledge and contacts[05]. He travelled extensively in Europe throughout the 1950s and, from 13 February to 12 June 1960, joined a round-the-world trip organised by the Gulbelkian Foundation[06], visiting Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Taliesin, Tokyo, Kyoto, Bangkok, Beirut, Cairo, Athens and Giza, and took the opportunity to take part in the some of the many architecture conferences, both the CIAM conferences and the World Design Conference (WODECO) in Tokyo.
Távora travelled several times to Italy, too, and the contacts with that country proved to be crucial for him.
In his many trips to Italy he met the Italian leaders of the debate on modern architecture, in particular with Ernesto Nathan Rogers, and – even though Italy and Portugal were politically very differently situated – facilitated the sharing of a common perspective on the search for the foundations of identity and on responsibility in vernacular architecture.
inside. The linear and sequential distribution of spaces in the more ‘public’ living area is immediately visible: entrance, staircase, and then the living room, kitchen and dining room opening onto the garden. The kitchen is compartmentalised, while the spaces for the dining table and living room are flexible and dynamic, flowing into each other, minimally separated by a partition that hints at tracing the layout of the inner rooms. The whole space offers itself to passage and communication, to contact and sharing of people, things and activities. The staircase is the junction that moves the corridor from the main front on the ground floor to the secondary front on the upper floor. Three bedrooms on the first floor are separated from each other by fixed furnishings and face the outdoors through large windows. By contrast, the garden of the apartment block (type B) is collective, shared (although fenced) and set back from the street. The stairwell on the main front of the building, in direct contact with light and air, connects the street, the garden, and he entrance to the building the apartments, and links the internal connecting and ordering system. In the living area, the fireplace creates a very important centre around which complementary activities can be brought together, and which acknowledges the beating heart of the house.
However, if in Ramalde Távora attained a highly complex articulation of the relations and types of housing, it was with the Casa de férias de Ofir (1956) (Ofir holiday house) that he wrote the manifesto for the model of living he had developed and refined over time. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the selection of living spaces included here finishes with a singlefamily house, the quintessential ‘intimate space of domestic life’, in a relationship of inseparable continuity and integration with nature. In it, Távora achieves a synthesis between History and Design, between past/ memory/tradition and the new model of contemporary living, between thought and construction. All that he had previously stated as theory can be found skillfully amalgamated here: the relationship with the setting, harmony between human needs and interior spaces, and the search for balance between vernacular solutions and international modern practices.
«One of the most basic notions of chemistry is the difference between a compound and a mixture, and this notion seems to us to be perfectly applicable, in essence, to the particular case of a building. [...] And in the present case of this home, built in the pine forest of Ofir, we have tried to comprehensively make it a real compound»[39] .
Távora speaks of a “magnificent and unforgettable dialogue” of all the elements that make up the building, in an orchestration that Sérgio Fernandez[40] regards as having been achieved in the balance between the revival of tradition (in the arrangement of materials, the construction solutions, the scale adopted and also in the use of symbolic elements such as the chimney) and the influence of modernity (in particular Le
Corbusier, recognisable in the use of reinforced concrete and in the effects of natural light in the interior).
The story becomes intense and engaging when defining the character of the building and the spaces that accommodate domestic living. The relationship with the setting of the natural landscape (albeit slightly shaped by the design) informs every design gesture: the house stands alone near Ofir beach, north of Porto, in contact with the broad horizon of woods, sea and river, and stands free, in a clearing in the pine forest, with no obvious paths connecting it to the road, nor paved paths. The choice of how to approach and reach it on foot through the meadow is made with complete freedom.
The spaces, divided into living area, sleeping area and utility rooms, and distributed by a corridor, are organised into a ‘T’ shape, orienting them towards the best exposure to the sun. The interiors are “carefully modelled in a succession of fluid and adaptable rooms, more or less open, compartmentalised or screened, with natural irregularities in the floors”[41], with ceilings and false ceilings created to achieve the right height, the appropriate size, the correct proportion for their purposes.
An anonymous driveway gate on the outer fence provides access to the house and leads to the centre of the private property, near the house, with the vegetation serving as a natural vestibule. The visitor does not discern a main entrance, but only the suggestion offered by a path, a direction that links exterior and interior.
The transition between outside and inside occurs spontaneously, simply through a change of ‘guides’ andcompositional rules: ‘beyond the threshold’ you are already in the heart of the house, in the hub of the organisational system. The domestic space is a sequence of varied rooms aimed at shared and hospitable use by a large family: rooms equipped with many beds, a generously-sized kitchen with specialised utility areas, a large living and dining room with a fireplace, and utility areas distributed along a single corridor. The kitchen consists of several areas, separated by partitions and fixed furnishings. The living room is flooded with light and wide open to nature: a glass wall with a modern flavour and more traditional windows, specialised in shape, size and position in relation to the wall, delimit and characterise portions of space in which each activity receives an appropriate amount of light and air and communicates its own identity. The flow of light and air, through the continuous pathway and the sequence of the spaces does not diminish the distinguishing features of each area: the variety of materials for the floor coverings and the specificity of the technical solutions for the ceilings, for example, communicate the function and presentation of each area or room, definitively confirming its collective or more private value in the structured interlacing of human relationships staged in the Casa de Ofir, at once structured and unitary, a space for welcoming and intensely humanised living.
With the same poetic strength of the circular gesture Siza Vieira and Souto de Moura use to encompass their sketches, thus finalizing their digressions and design experiments and declaring their satisfaction for a doubt sorted out or a good solution achieved on the paper sheet, I would like to close this paper, not with the claim of a “good solution” reached, but simply with the hope that some light has been shed on and a little contribution has been made to the interpretation of certain less known aspects of the thinking of such an important figure of contemporary architecture and history.
Nevertheless, I am aware that Távora’s opus, with his theoretical and design practice journey, still present a vast field of exploration, interpretation and research insights, due to the extent of his legacy yet to be covered and revisited. The exercise introduced by this paper had simply the purpose to test the possibility of applying a “thin optical filter on the research lens”, meant to reveal, in the tight limits of the text dimension, the originality of the theoretical message, the design example and the social commitment about the theme of housing Távora dedicated such a large part of his work to, and was able to animate with an understanding we still deem valid and consistent in our time, more than half a century past.
House, inhabiting, men and women, space and place, Portuguese soul and internationality are the keywords. Távora starts from here. And from here he would go on to develop his most comprehensive and concrete residential designs.
[01] Barbara Bogoni, not a direct student or working associate of Távora, is an Associate Professor in Architectural and Urban Composition at the Politecnico di Milano and teaches architectural design. She has worked with Eduardo Souto de Moura in the field of university education, and research Portuguese architecture and reciprocal cultural relations between Portugal and Italy. (“IN_SCRIPTA | in_Studing Collaborating Researching Italian and Portuguese Architecture” research group, coordinated by Barbara Bogoni).
[02] José Gil, Salazar: a retórica da invisibilidade, Relógio de Água, Lisbon 1995.
[03] On this topic, see the fundamental contribution by Antonio Esposito and Giovanni Leoni, Architetti a Porto: una scuola?, in Casabella LXV, n. 700, 2002, pp. 4-5.
[04] Giovanni Leoni, Oltre il moderno. L’architettura di Fernando Távora, in: Antonio Esposito, Giovanni Leoni, Francesco Del Conte, Raffaella Maddaluno, Alessandra Chemollo e Fulvio Orsenigo, Fernando Távora. Opera completa, Electa, Milan 2005, p. 36.
[05] See: Antonio Esposito, Giovanni Leoni, Raffaella Maddaluno (eds.), Diario Di Bordo, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2022.
[06] The Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, founded in Lisbon in 1956 by Armenian-born philanthropist Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, who lived in Lisbon between 1942 and 1955, is an institution in perpetuity that seeks to improve people’s quality of life through art, charity, science and education.
[07] In 1948, Távora was invited by Viana De Lima to help organise and later take part in the I° Congresso Nacional dos Arquitectos (First National Congress of Architects), which resulted in a greater openness to international ideas and to the need for an update of the Portuguese approach. Távora began participating in CIAM International Congresses from 1951, at the invitation of Viana De Lima, entering the international debate, meeting Le Corbusier and establishing flourishing cultural relations with Italy. On this topic, see: Antonio Esposito, Giovanni Leoni, Francesco Del Conte, Raffaella Maddaluno, Alessandra Chemollo e Fulvio Orsenigo, Fernando Távora. Opera completa, Electa, Milan 2005; José António Banderinha Oliveira, Jane Considine, Fernando Távora Permanent modernity, Associaçao Casa da Arquitetura, Matosinhos 2012.
[08] Carlos Ramos’ teaching of linguistic freedom and a sense of responsibility, which were not fully in line with the impositions of the authoritarian regime, brought the young Távora closer to modernity, to the works of Picasso and Le Corbusier, and opened his eyes to the many possibilities of interpreting history in an operational and design sense.
[09] Alexandre Alves Costa, architect and professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto – FAUP, is one of the most relevant exponents of architectural culture and practice in Portugal.
[10] Alexandre Alves Costa in Antonio Esposito, Giovanni Leoni, Architetti a Porto: una scuola?, in Casabella, 700, May 2002, pp. 4-5.
[11] Álvaro Siza Vieira, A Arquitectura moderna não é um estilo, mas uma atitude, in Casabella 896, 2019.
[12] Much modern and contemporary Portuguese research in various cultural fields is concerned with (and concerned by) defining the identifying characteristics of the Portuguese language, in architecture and in broader artistic culture. See, by way of example, the important historicalcritical research conducted by Ana Tostões, Helena Barranha and others. See, among many: Camões, Revista de letras e culturas, n. 22, 2013.
[13] Fernando Távora, Da organizaçao do espaço, FAUP, Porto 1999.
[14] Idem.
[15] Idem.
[16] This topic is raised by Eduardo Souto de Moura, in B. Bogoni, A Scuola con Eduardo Souto de Moura, Franco Angeli, Milan 2018 and in Barbara Bogoni, Eduardo Souto de Moura. Learning from History. Designing into History, Amag, Porto 2020.
[17] The topic is addressed in the broader field of research of the “IN_SCRIPTA | in_Studying Collaborating Researching Italian and Portuguese Architecture” Research Group, coordinated by Barbara Bogoni. See: Debora Zaccarelli, Contemporary Távora, Master of Science thesis in Architectural Design and History, Supervisor: Prof. Barbara Bogoni, Co-supervisor: Francesco Cancelliere, School of Architecture Urban Planning and Construction Engineering (AUIC), Mantova Campus of Politecnico di Milano, 2021. This thesis examines Fernando Távora’s theoretical work and some of his designs of residential spaces, framing the political-cultural context,
with the intention of highlighting the premises that guided the design. The research recognises the value of Távora’s architecture, which is to be found not in its belonging to a precise stylistic movement, but in the control and balance achieved in its relationships with the land, context and history.
[18] Fernando Távora, O problema da casa portuguesa, 1945.
[19] Idem.
[20] Idem.
[21] Idem.
[22] The need for an information campaign around the country’s building tradition had already been expressed in 1947 in an article by Keil do Amaral entitled Uma iniciativa necessaria (A necessary initiative), but it did not become operational until 1955, when the autarkic government officially approved the Inquérito à Arquitectura Popular em Portugal (Investigation into Public Architecture in Portugal), published in 1961.
[23] AA. VV., Arquitectura popular em Portugal, Edições do Sindacato Nacional dos Arquitectos, Lisbona 1961.
[24] Idem.
[25] Fernando Távora, Da organizaçao do espaço, FAUP, Porto 1999.
[26] Fernando Távora, Fernando Távora: Organizzare lo spazio, in: Casabella LXV, n. 693, 2001.
[27] Carlotta Torricelli (ed.), Fernando Távora. Dell’organizzazione dello spazio, Nottetempo, Milan 2021, p. 18.
[28] Fernando Távora, Da organizaçao do espaço, FAUP, Porto 1999.
[29] Idem.
[30] See: Nuno Portas, Manuel Mendes, Portogallo Architettura. Gli ultimi Vent’anni, Electa, Milan 1991, pp. 24-36.
[31] The Ministry of Housing was entrusted to Nuno Portas, who promoted an articulated reform programme in the SAAL and Cooperative Housing programmes, entrusting technical teams composed of professors and students from architecture departments with the task of drawing up building designs with social components.
[32] See: José António Bandeirinha, Processo SAAL e a Arquitectura no 25 de Abril de 1974, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2007.
[33] The residential buildings presented in this text have been carefully analysed and critically interpreted in Debora Zaccarelli’s
aforementioned Master of Science Thesis, which reconstructed the history of their design, framing it in the relevant historicalpolitical and cultural context. Each building was studied through the original iconographic documentation (sketches, drawings and models) and texts by and about Fernando Távora, contextualised and analysed according to the sequence of movements promoted and/ or welcomed by the organisation of the living space.
[34] Fernando Távora, Da organizaçao do espaço, FAUP, Porto 1999.
[35] From the presentation text of the design Uma Casa sobre o mar: Fernando Távora, CODAS, Concurso para a Obtençao do Diploma de Arquiteto (Competitive examination for obtaining the degree in Architecture), Escola Superior de Belas Artes, Porto 1950.
[36] Idem.
[37] Fernando Távora, Uma casa na Foz do Douro, in: Casa e decoração, 6, 1969, in: Manuel Mendes, Luís Ferreira Alves, Sobre o Projectode-Arquitetura de Fernando Távora. Fernando Távora Minha Casa, Faup - Faculdade de Arquitettura da Universidade do Porto, 2015, p. vii.
[38] Fernando Távora, Memorandum describing the plan of the Grémio dos Armazenistas de Mercearia in Porto, 1960.
[39] Fernando Távora, Casa em Ofir, in Arquitectura III, 56, 1957, p. 10.
[40] Sérgio Fernandez, Percuso: Arquitectura portuguesa, 1930/1974, Serviço Editorial Arquitectonico da Universidade do Porto, Porto 1988, p. 127.
[41] Idem.
DELVING INTO FERNANDO TÁVORA’S ARCHIVE
Rafael Sousa Santos and Francesco Cancelliere
THE ARCHIVE AND ITS MATERIALS
Since 2011, the entirety of architect Fernando Távora’s professional archive has been stored at the Fundação Marques da Silva in Porto. Later on, his personal library and a vast collection of scattered materials such as postcards, letters, and manuscripts were also added to the archive. We are dealing with an extensive and diverse body of work, thankfully mostly digitized and organized, which greatly facilitated our undertaking.
The purpose of our work, in its initial phase, was to explore and become familiar with the various graphic productions of Fernando Távora found within the archive. We aimed to identify and categorize these materials, ultimately selecting a sample that would exemplify his graphic and drawn work. Although our main focus was on Távora’s drawings, we chose to broaden our scope initially by examining all available data and artifacts.
This approach required frequent visits to Fundação Marques da Silva, organized in short periods of intensive work. Through immersion in the materials and the dedicated support of the institution’s technicians and administrators, we were able to develop a comprehensive perspective of the entire range of materials at hand and understand their organizational structure. Even within the realm of drawings, we quickly realized that they were dispersed across various distinct areas.
Therefore, in addition to Távora’s drawings, we encountered a wide array of other materials within the archive. These included numerous photographs, such as portraits, travel snapshots, project photographs, and even pictures of physical models. We also came across a collection of slides from Távora’s travels, fragments of his manuscripts, a diverse
array of texts either authored by the architect himself or directly related to his work, and digitized volumes that constituted a part of his personal library, encompassing both academic and literary spheres.
This thorough exploration of Távora’s archive enabled us to locate and categorize his drawings. Instead of organizing them by types or techniques (such as precise drawing, freehand drawing, shading or lines, etc.), we opted to group them by domains. As a result, we identified four primary domains that encompass his drawings at Fundação Marques da Silva:
I) Project drawings. This domain encompasses the largest portion of the archive, revealing the architect’s ongoing and meticulous professional work. We’re referring to around three hundred entries of architectural projects, each containing materials documenting the design process and construction progress. These drawings predominantly display a high level of precision, often accompanied by annotations along the edges of the paper. They encompass various elements, including diagrams, partial sketches, small-scale perspectives, and intricate construction details. A prime illustration of the diverse drawing types can be found in the project for the Soares dos Reis Museum.
II)Travel drawings. While not as abundant as the project drawings, they hold a notable place within the archive. This domain showcases a diverse range of drawing styles, all executed by hand and encompassing a mix of line work and washes. These sketches capture various aspects, including observational drawings with one or two vanishing points, aerial perspectives, detailed surveys in plan or section, object drawings (such as ethnographic sketches), depictions of human figures and portraits.
III )Educational drawings. This domain piqued our interest the most, despite the relatively scarce available materials. We are referring to a collection of records from Távora’s lectures in the Teoria Geral da Organização do Espaço (General Theory of Space Organization) courses, encompassing drawings he made during classes where text, representation systems, colours, and lines blend together. Here, we witness how drawings are utilized to support and enhance communication, much like the drawings tutors employ when eviewing project works. These drawings serve as concise annotated summaries, employed for knowledge transmission.
IV )A ssorted drawings. Within this domain, we encounter a fascinating collection of varied and fragmented drawings found in the archive. Here, we delve into Távora’s artistic journey, including his early student years, where we discover a rich assortment of sketches, annotations in notebooks and diaries, depictions of objects, portraits, and even poetic wanderings. Some of these drawings also reveal a playful or whimsical side, showcasing a subtle aspect that gracefully weaves through much of his work.
WHAT DO THE DRAWINGS
What can Távora’s drawings reveal to us? It should be noted that depicting secure conclusions would require a systematic analysis with well-defined methods and criteria. As we have not followed such procedures, we can only offer some hypotheses for interpretation, which we will present here in an unassuming manner. However, these hypotheses would benefit from further development in future research. Among the collection of drawings by Távora, we believe that the nonrigorous ones, including sketches, diagrams, and annotations (sometimes combined on the same panel alongside the ′hard lines′), offer valuable insights to complement our understanding of the architect’s persona. These drawings grant us access to dimensions and aspects that may not be readily apparent in the precise drawings or even in his architecture. We will explore three avenues through which these drawings can contribute to our understanding of Távora.
Firstly, and perhaps most notably, these drawings allow us to gain some awareness (albeit partial) of Távora’s design process. While comparing various versions of precise drawings (when available) can provide some clues in this regard, the freehand drawings associated with the projects offer much richer insights. They serve as a closer representation of the architect’s mental journey, capturing his intentions and intuitions. In the case of Távora, in particular, where freehand drawing was a fundamental aspect of his work, these drawings provide precious records of his working method and a certain interactive quality that drawing embodies.
Another avenue of understanding that Távora’s drawings offer relates to his interests, influences, and references. One noteworthy aspect, which may initially seem redundant, is his fascination with drawing itself. This is evident in his travel sketchbooks, where freehand drawing plays a prominent role as a means of capturing the visible world (sometimes akin to photography) as well as the “non-visible”, surpassing the limitations of the observer located in the space. For instance, he meticulously depicts plant surveys, sections, and aerial perspectives, often reimagined based on his spatial experiences.
In terms of content, Távora’s drawings reflect a profound interest in multiculturalism and the distinctive cultural characteristics of each location, and how these manifestations find expression in architectural forms. It is also intriguing to observe his equal appreciation for the grand classics of world architecture and the humble vernacular and anonymous architectural traditions encountered during his journeys. Additionally, one cannot overlook his recurring preoccupations, as exemplified by his frequent depictions of family coats of arms and heraldry.
Lastly, and closely connected to the previous point, these drawings also provide a pathway to accessing a more intimate side of the architect,
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM TÁVORA TODAY?
Barbara Bogoni and João Mendes Ribeiro
For the exhibition Fernando Távora: Modernidade Permanente, staged in Guimaraes in 2012, its curator, José António Bandeirinha, offered the public a new perspective on the figure of Távora. This perspective, for the authors of this publication, is fundamental to understanding Távora’s worth, namely the educational nature of his ‘making architecture’, which translates into ‘teaching’. Through a unique reading of his architectural output (which expressed little about his works and much of his educational message), Bandeirinha presented the four periods of Távora’s educational activity – first as a student in Porto, then as a ‘researcher’, with the experience of his international travels, then as a promoter of the radical reform of architecture teaching in Portugal, and finally, as a university professor – in order to frame the complex image of a Master who embodied the qualities of the architect, the researcher and the professor.
A complex kind of an architect appeared then, a manifold synthesis of cultural and social commitment, of educational and architectural profile, deeply plunged into the contemporary reality, able to detect its multiple critical aspects and its development potential and to turn them into an asset. The engagement put in the analysis an in the interpretation of the Portuguese situation was reflected into the effort to systematise the local circumstance with the international state of the arts, accomplished both by the active critical involvement into the disciplinary debate of those years and by the translation of the discussed matters to the local level, and by the research and study travels, not an obvious activity in that period of tight social, cultural and economic restrain determinated by the dominant regime policy.
In this hard environment, Fernando Távora’s profile took shape along with the ripening of the Portuguese necessity of “looking far” not only in the direction of the Ocean, dwelling on the horizon line as it is common in the Portuguese tradition, but also “looking deeper
into”, with a glance opened to new contaminations. Paradoxically, those contaminations, rather than occur as absolute and hegemonic statements, found in the Portuguese context the correct words and the subtle lexical shades, so that they can be turned into an unprecedented and specific ′modus operandi′, into a new sensitivity, into a new school, mostly due to the wise translation operated by Távora himself, both close to the original and aware of the peculiarity of Portuguese country and people.
As an architect, researcher and professor, Távora takes the intense and severe responsibility of acting in many directions, in order to focus the multiple problems of the contemporary housing and of the definition of an architectural language, respectful of the continuity imposed by Portuguese history and culture, which would not deny the past and at the same time would be projected into the future; he accepts the tasks of the continuous check of every step, option and positioning, through the research in the local and international fields, of the trial though the design, of the definition of a new and contemporary housing model, of the transmission and diffusion of an open, aware and humanitarian consciousness.
Távora has only one thing to say as the foundation of the work and ethics of the architect, laying the grounds for defining the scope of the architect’s role and the boundaries within which the architect moves, and recommends inter-professional collaboration, in which the architect knows how to balance the weights: “We are designers. We are not builders, and without a designed construction we cannot exist. We are designers, architectural theorists, but our profession requires us to interact with engineers”[01], and if the latter guarantee the soundness of the construction, the former must guarantee its quality (in many – all – respects). It is through design that the architect expresses and transmits knowledge, and it can only be through design, because this is his one tool, his technique for communicating knowledge.
Therefore, drawing plays a communication role, crucial on both the level of design definition and the level of knowledge. To draw is to know, to draw is to delve into things and the design may arise from the knowledge as long as the drawing explores it deeply. In Távora’s activity, to sketch hand-free and to draw are actual practices in the project and cognitive path.
In 1944, in his journal, Távora recorded an entry declaring his total “lack of experience”, his inability, in the field of creative art, although he was passionately involved in historical investigation and in arts critics, as well as his refrain from the idea of defining himself a “creative” and his reluctance to associate his design practice to the word “creation”, because “it’s the superior spirit that creates, a hero too may be, such, but he will never be able to reach the artist’s level; a saint may also be such, but only due to the divine gift he carries inside him”[02] . Nevertheless, when it is associated to the meaning of “knowing how to execute in a different way, with originality and feeling”, of searching
for new forms, new expressions or new means, of revealing the unknown or “penetrate” into reality, then the word “create” takes a “non-creative” connotation, an operative role conveying the meaning of performing the act of achieving what one has the knowledge of. It then turns into something extraordinary and singular: an important path to be walked.
As a researcher, Távora experienced architecture directly through travel and through dialogue with the international world. Yet despite his strong drive outwards, towards building dense networks of relationships and learning about the specificities of the places he visited, Távora’s research always began and ended with Portugal, and, almost in defiance of the generalist, internationalist thought of his era, he worked to deepen his knowledge of his own native identity, deeply rooted in the culture and practice of the Portuguese architectural tradition. Indeed, while many of the aspects of linguistic conventions faced challenges from contamination by the international sphere, the most authentic and rationalist principles of ‘Portugueseness’ were identified and consolidated thanks to the same internationality, and, although Távora was fascinated by the diversity of relationships between humanity and the built environment (which he saw in all different places around the world) and the human and cultural specificities of each community, in the end he always interpreted them from his own cultural perspective, to then reconnect them with his own identity, his Portuguese identity. Undoubtedly, this contributed to the establishment in Portugal of the modernity of which Távora was a passionate researcher. Nevertheless, about his role of a researcher given the responsibility of knowing the “external” diversity in order to guide the “internal” transformation of the country, what we would like to point out is. Távora’s predisposition when undertaking his quest and the political and cultural context he starts from, his heart when he operates on the context itself driven by the idea of the necessity (and possibility) of transformation, rather than his method, already discussed extensively and studied in his sketches, travel notes and journal entries. The young teacher of architecture, animated by the humility of the one willing to learn more than to teach, with no erudition nor academic reputation, but with the sole weapon of his excellent skill and intuition, was preparing himself to dialogue with the most renowned figures of the international architectural culture, to face the experiments and innovation of modernity and to engage with some of the most advanced countries in the fields of science, technology and administrative structure, but that lacked the historical roots Portugal was keeping tightly anchored to, or with some countries of an age-old culture and tradition, but with very few contact points to the Portuguese reality. Now, Távora proves to know how to retrieve from his international research experience and how to store such a richness in expression and such a great heritage of observations and references, that they appear diminished in their operational and
AN EDUCATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fernando Távora, O problema da casa portuguesa, Cadernos de Arquitectura n. 1, Lisbon 1947 (Portuguese texts)
Fernando Távora, Da Organização do Espaço. Porto 1962
Luiz Trigueiros et alii, Fernando Távora, Blau, Lisbon 1993 (English and Portuguese texts)
Antonio Esposito, Giovanni Leoni, Fernando Távora. Opera completa, Electa, Milano 2005 (Italian texts)
Paulo Coelho, Fernando Távora, QuidNovi-Edição e Conteüdos, S.A., Matosinhos, 2011 (Portuguese texts)
José António Bandeirinha (coord.) Fernando Távora, Modernidade Permanente (catálogo da exposição), Guimarães, G2012CEC / ACA / Fundação Marques da Silva / FFT / FCG, 2012 (English and Portuguese texts)
Fernando Távora, Diário de ‘Bordo’ (fac-simile), Guimarães, CA, Fundação Marques da Silva, FFT, Guimarães 2012 (Portuguese texts)
Coleção Fernando Távora “Minha Casa”, de Manuel Mendes: fascículo I, Prólogo, Porto, Fundação Marques da Silva, FAUP e U. Porto, 2013; fascículo II, Uma porta pode ser um romance, Porto, Fundação Marques da Silva, FAUP e U. Porto, 2013; fascículo V, Sobre o ‘projeto-dearquitetura’ de Fernando Távora, Porto, Fundação Marques da Silva, FAUP e U. Porto Press, 2015 (Portuguese texts)
Carlotta Torricelli (by), Fernando Távora. Dell’organizzazione dello spazio, Nottetempo, Milano 2021 (Italian texts)
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Bernardo Távora
Luis Martinho Urbano
Paula Abrunhosa
PUBLISHER
AMAG publisher
COLLECTION
Pocket Books
SERIES
Architecture in Theory and History
VOLUME
PB 06
TITLE IN CLASS WITH TÁVORA TEACHING AND LEARNING (LIVING) TODAY
Davide Del Curto, professor of politecnico di milano
Eduardo Souto de Moura, architect in porto
Miguel Angel de La Iglesia Santamaria, professor of university of valladolid
Marc Dubois, architect in ghent
Tony Fretton, architect in london
PUBLICATION DATE October 2024
ISBN LEGAL DEPOSIT 475406/20
PRINTING
Graficamares
RUN NUMBER 1000 numbered copies
OWNER AMAG publisher
VAT NUMBER 513 818 367
CONTACT hello@amagpublisher.com
FOLLOW US AT www.amagpublisher.com
BARBARA BOGONI AND JOÃO MENDES RIBEIRO IN CLASS WITH TÁVORA TEACHING AND LEARNING (LIVING) TODAY
FERNANDO TÁVORA
Architect, researcher and professor, Fernando Távora is the is the universally recognised father of the Porto School. Since the 1950s he has left an indelible mark on Portuguese architecture and on the education of subsequent generations of architects.
The idea that contemporary design can always be orientated towards people, in symbiosis with place and in continuity with History is Távora’s great innovation, which proclaims his extraordinary relevance.
BARBARA BOGONI
Barbara Bogoni, Associate Professor in Architectural and Urban Design, teaches architectural design at the Mantova Campus of Politecnico di Milano. She is coordinator of the research group IN_SCRIPTA | in_Studing Collaborating Researching Italian and Portuguese Architecture. Her extensive publications on Portuguese architecture include articles and essays: Eduardo Souto de Moura. Un dialogo antico tra materia, tecnica e progetto, 2018; Siza patina permanenza, 2020; Alvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura, A dialogue on Architecture and Memory, 2020; João Luís Carrilho da Graça. Experimenting with permanence and transformation, 2020; Paulo David. Dwelling on the land-sea threshold: “Circular” Architecture, 2021; João Mendes Ribeiro. Like an archaeologist, between fragments of architecture, history and poetry, drawing…, 2021; and monographies: A scuola con Eduardo Souto de Moura, 2017; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Piranesi Prix de Rome, 2019; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Learning from History. Designing into History, 2020; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Architettura sulla storia, 2022; Paulo David. The lesson of the continuity, 2023.
JOÃO MENDES RIBEIRO
João Mendes Ribeiro (Coimbra, 1960) is a Portuguese architect and professor. He graduated from the University of Porto in 1986 and completed his PhD at the University of Coimbra in 2009. Since 1991, he has taught design at the Department of Architecure of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Coimbra. His work has received several awards: FAD Prize 2004, 2016 and 2022; Gold Medal for Best Stage Design, Prague Quadriennal, 2007; Enor Prize 2009; BIAU Prize 2012 and 2016; RIBA Award for International Excellence 2016; BigMat Prize 2017; Secil Prize for Architecture 2020; PNRU Prize 2021; PNAM Prize 2021; Diogo de Castilho Prize 2021 and João Almada Prize 2021.
Selected for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies Van Der Rohe Award 2001 and 2015 and the DOMUS International Prize for Restoration and Preservation 2017. Honourable mention at the DOMUS International Prize for Restoration and Preservation 2021. Finalist at the RIBA International Prize 2016 and the FAD Award 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2022.
