Histories of Postwar Architecture: Announcements

Ricardo Bofill Abroad: The International Projection of the Taller de Arquitectura - Call for Papers - HPA 15/2024

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 11:01:49 +0200

This Call for Papers is promoted by the research project RETRANSLATES01. Reflections, from Europe, on architecture in Spain: urban projects, public facilities, design and interventions in heritage (1976-2006), PID2022-138760NB-C21 funded by MCIN /AEI/10.13039/501100011033 DOI/ FEDER, EU.

In the early 1960s, Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill (1939-2022) designed his first works in Barcelona. These works represented a unique synthesis of local architectural tradition and the emerging challenge of various forms of urban utopia, which was unprecedented in Spain during this period.

In his first residential buildings, Ricardo Bofill skilfully introduced a code of realism that he shared with the rest of his contemporary Catalan colleagues. However, dissatisfied with the limitations of architecture and the political, economic and social reality of the country, he founded in 1963 the “Taller de Arquitectura” (Architecture Workshop; RBTA). It was an unorthodox, multidisciplinary, international team, comprised of architects, engineers, mathematicians, sculptors, painters, sociologists, writers, philosophers, musicians and film-makers. RBTA’s analyse the problem of the contemporary city and the relationship with and between its inhabitants in order to design a new, alternative architecture for the city.

From then on, Bofill undertook an adventure of broad horizons, although he remained faithful to the formal legacy of Antoni Gaudí’s work, to the political commitment of the GATCPAC of the 1930s, and to the professional ethics of José Antonio Coderch. His works soon aroused the interest of the main international media: the residential buildings on Compositor Bach Street (Barcelona, 1962-63), the Gaudí district in Reus (Tarragona, 1964-70), the tourist complex in Calpe (Alicante, 1965-70), as well as the Kafka Castle (Sant Pere de Ribes, Barcelona, 1966-70) or the Walden-7 (Sant Just Desvern, Barcelona, 1970-75), among many others, were widely published in the main European publications specialising in architecture.

Ricardo Bofill’s career has also attracted the attention of critics and historians such as Bruno Zevi, Reyner Banham and Geoffrey Broadbent. Since the decade of the 1970s, they have approached the various theoretical proposals developed in “La ciudad en el espacio” (The City in Space), an urban alternative that was too innovative for late Francoist Spain. Faced with the obvious difficulties of developing initiatives -such as the Moratalaz development in Madrid (1972-1974)-, Ricardo Bofill decided to look for a more favourable environment in Europe to put his ambitious theoretical proposals into practice.

It was time to move to France, a country that welcomed Ricardo Bofill with a mixture of suspicion, curiosity and interest, but where his international career finally took off. During the “French years” of the 1970s, the Taller drew up a series of urban and architectural designs, including La Petite Cathédrale (Cergy-Pontoise, 1971), La Citadelle Fort de Saint-Cyr (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 1973) and Les Halles (Paris, 1975). However, not all of them were built, despite the good relationship between the architect and the French Prime Minister at the time, Giscard d’Estaing.

By contrast, from 1980, the Taller developed a series of urban housing projects for the new neighbourhoods of the main French villes nouvelles, especially in Paris: Le Lac (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 1972-1987), Les Espaces d’Abraxas (Marne-la-Vallé, 1979-1982), Le Crescent Vert (Cergy-Pontoise, 1981-1985) and Antigone (Montpellier, 1979-1996). After its failure in Spain, the utopia attempted by the Taller de Arquitectura triumphed a decade later in F. Miterrand’s France.

However, this was only achieved by establishing a complex dialogue between classicism and technology, or between monument and prefabrication. This contradiction seems to have been resolved today, given the recent assimilation of these works into the collective visual imaginary of contemporary society.

Since then, the work of the Taller has expanded to new locations, typologies, and scales. For example, experiences on the African continent range from the farming towns of Houari Boumédienne (Abadla, Algeria, 1978-1980) to more recent projects such as the Université Mohammed VI (Ben Guerir, Morocco, 2010-2016). The international dimension of RBTA architecture became more prominent in the 1990s with the construction of the 77 West Wacker Drive high-rise office building in Chicago (1988-1990) and the subsequent Dearborn Center (Chicago, 2003). These buildings were located in the heart of the postmodern architecture debate. The global reach of RBTA has expanded to include new works in Asia, such as the Shiseido Ginza building (Tokyo, 2001), and unique designs like the Moscow Extension Competition (2012).

Following Ricardo Bofill’s passing in 2022, the aim of issue 15 of HPA is to analyse the international trajectory of the Taller de Arquitectura from 1970 to the present day. This will be achieved through a critical, up-to-date approach. The architectural output of Ricardo Bofill is the subject of a case study that aims to contribute to academic and public debate. Bofill’s work is cross-cutting, bold, and polemic, making him a controversial yet indispensable figure in the recent history of international architecture.

The following are potential areas of research that can be explored without limitations:

RBTA beyond Spain: relations between Spanish and international works.
The reception of the work of RBTA in international mass media.
The “French Years” of RBTA: between urban planning, political management and relations with power.
The international networks of members of the Taller’s professional team.

Papers should be submitted in English using
https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register

The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:

Applicant’s name
Professional affiliation
Title of paper
Abstract
5 keywords
A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)

Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 25,000 characters with up to six images). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources on which they are based. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section:
https://hpa.unibo.it/about#sectionPolicy

To addressed questions to the editors:
redazione.hpa@unibo.it

Authors must submit directly full papers by December 31, 2024

Accepted authors will be notified by February 28, 2025

Publication is expected to be in June 2025

The Churches and the City: European experiences between the 1950s and the 1960s - Call for Papers - HPA 14/2023

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 14:55:00 +0200

The Cardinals Josef Frings (1887-1978) in Cologne, Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira (1888-1977) in Lisbon and Giacomo Lercaro (1891-1976) in Bologna between the 1950s and 1960s are at the apex of a geographical triangle with dense relations that have not yet been exhaustively explored. Committed to the liturgical movement and the conciliar debate, Frings, Gonçalves Cerejeira and Lercaro – in a lively framework of episcopal initiative at the European level – promoted a cultural revolution in little more than ten years that would have important consequences not only from an architectural and artistic point of view in the Catholic sphere, but also in other Christian denominations.

In this sense, no less significant are the experiences in Austria, France, Spain and Northern Europe where architects are involved by patrons – more or less pastorally up-to-date – in the construction of new religious centres. The construction – or more limitedly, the debate on these new ecclesiastical buildings alone – contributes to weaving a dense web of relationships that constitute an extremely significant chapter in the history of architecture and town planning in the second half of the 20th century. The relations established between the ecclesiastical hierarchies, politicians, intellectual scholars of religious and social sciences, architects and artists lead to the construction of thousands of new churches throughout Europe in a short time, even before the post-conciliar revolution. These were immediately understood by all the institutional stakeholders and communities involved not only as indistinct pieces of the complex mosaic of the neighbourhood, but as identity points of the new settlement realities, architectural, social and cultural nerve centres for the residents. The ecclesiastical system, in the same years, is reorganised not only in the expansion areas, but also in the more stratified neighbourhoods: the restoration of churches damaged during the war, the debate on the issue of ‘historic centres’, the demographic and social transformations of the historic city districts change the function and significance of the religious presence, prompting delicate operations of reconstruction, abandonment, transformation or replacement of pre-existing complexes.

The call wants to shed new light on these stories, leaving total freedom on topics, sources and research themes. From the contribution made by journals close to the liturgical movement in each country («Chiesa e quartiere» in Italy, «Das Munster» in Germany, «Ara» in Spain, «Kunst und Kirche» and «Christliche Kunstblatter» in Austria, «L’Art d’Eglise» in Belgium, «Construire l’Eglise» and «Chemin Neuf» in France etc.) and journals of urban studies and planning, to the work of study centres and agencies specialising in the pastoral infrastructure of cities, to the work of local designers often neglected by critics (among them Giorgio Trebbi in Italy, Miguel Fisac Serna in Spain, Osmo Sipari in Finland and many others) or of well-known international architects including Rudolf Schwarz, Alvar Aalto or Le Corbusier. Equally significant are the exhibitions on the new churches organised in Cologne in 1959 and in Bologna in 1955 and 1960 and what came out of them, the Biennal of Sacred Art in Salzburg, the SIAC (International Society of Artists of the Christian Faith) congress in Copenhagen in the summer of 1965 and then in Bologna in 1967 as well as many other events in those years that contributed to a tangible confrontation between the parties and testified to the value of the events. The contribution and the action promoted by other bishops, perhaps even less investigated, such as Cardinals Jozef-Ernest Van Roey (1874-1961) in Belgium and Gregorio Modrego (1890-1972) bishop of Barcelona from 1943 to 1967 who, like the aforementioned were at the centre of the cultural ferment of their dioceses, further implement the list of protagonists and possible geographies under study.

Papers should be submitted in English using
https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register

The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:

Applicant’s name
Professional affiliation
Title of paper
Abstract
5 keywords
A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)

Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 80,000 characters). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section:
https://hpa.unibo.it/about#sectionPolicy

To addressed questions to the editors:
redazione.hpa@unibo.it

The call is linked to the International Conference “THE CHURCHES AND THE CITY. European experiences between the 1950s and the 1960s”
https://events.unibo.it/churchandcity

A selection of papers accepted for the Conference will be published in HPA

Authors may also submit full papers directly to HPA by 31 December 2023

Acceptance of full papers implies the possibility of participating in the conference as an invited speaker

Publication is expected to be in June 2024

Envisioning Tomorrow’s Cities O.M.Ungers’ Urban Reflections - Call for Papers - HPA 12/2023

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 17:08:01 +0100

Against the background of crisis that the city is confronted with today, this Call for Papers is addressed to those truly visionary and experimental aspects, in the research of the German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers (1926-2007), that can serve as a starting point for the visions of the cities of tomorrow and that, so far, scholarly work has not sufficiently deepened.

This Call for papers focuses on Ungers’ radical vision of future cities that exceeds his rational approach to form, morphology and urban transformation, to which he is too often reduced, despite his multifarious activities as a visionary architect, farsighted planner and scrupulous intellectual.

A look with new eyes at the urban visions that Ungers developed in the Sixties and Seventies, can open fresh insights into the increasingly complex contemporary urban systems, as diversity, new traffic systems, climate change, biodiversity, affordable housing, land and energy sustainability, and stimulate imaginative reflections and scenarios for new urban perspectives.

The City in the City: Berlin Green Archipelago is one of the many original ideas for investigating Ungers’ experiments regarding the future city, it allows the appraisal of his critical commitments and thoughts with the cultural experience of the city itself. The work of Oswald Mathias Ungers constitutes an inexhaustible source of research for its power to embrace the most diverse fields of culture, art, literature, sociology, economics, and photography. Everything seems to have been explored by contemplating the most different aspects. His desire was to catalogue and address all the possibilities of action in the field of the transformation of the built environment, whether it is landscape, public space, or a simple dwelling.

On the one hand, his experiments concerning the architectural work, such as geometry, form, the relationship with images, analogy, and the autonomy of architecture seem to have already been partly explored. On the other hand, it seems necessary to address a critical analysis of his urban projects from a contemporary perspective.

We therefore suggest the following binomials, that may offer new ways of interpretation:

Utopia/Dystopia
Ecology/Biodiversity
Rhetoric/Humanism
Universality/Eurocentrism
Morphology/Transformation
Postmodernism/Posthumanism

The aim is to analyse the ideas of city experimented by Ungers, generated also in a comparison with others European design experiences: from the research conducted inside the Team X, to the research at the TU Berlin and Cornell University. The purpose is to define a range of possible cityscapes, useful to set a series of theoretical references and scenarios.

The intention is not to celebrate a remote past in a rhetorical way, but to turn the attention to a design methodology based on an organic study of the city.

Vittorio Gregotti was the first, with Pierluigi Nicolin, to publish the German architect’s seminal research in Italy. In the introductory text to his work, published in the early Seventies in «Lotus international» magazine, he describes Ungers’ willingness to place fixed points, literally ‘hammering in nails’ with the design process. He pointed out Ungers’ rigorous array of syntactic alternatives and the will to examine all the combinatorial possibilities. The value of these classifications lies in their relationship with history, in the progressive character and in the possibility of offering operational hints for contemporary urban planning.

The city of Berlin was for Ungers an extensive field of experimentation and, precisely in relation to the actions developed in the city following the fall of the wall, he lamented the lack of a clear perspective for the development of the city itself: “If no one makes the effort to elaborate a general structure and to identify plans that deal with the city seen as a complex structure, then the result can only be fragmentary work and a general bewilderment.”

Re-reading today the urban speculations developed by Ungers can be an opportunity to look at the contemporary situation of cities and territory with a broad and radical vision, imagining a potential future.

Papers should be submitted in English using
https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register

The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:

Applicant’s name
Professional affiliation
Title of paper
Abstract
5 keywords
A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)

Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 15,000 and 35,000 characters with up to six images). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.
HPA also looks for contributions for the review section.

https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

Authors must submit directly full papers by September 30, 2023

Accepted authors will be notified by October 31, 2023

Publication is expected to be in December 2023

Fernando Távora at 100 - Call for Papers - HPA 11/2022

Mon, 16 May 2022 18:58:35 +0200

Fernando Távora was born in Porto on 25 August 1923. A leading figure in Portuguese architecture in the second half of the 20th century, Távora is the author of dozens of built works – most of which are located in northern Portugal – an urban planner, a prominent lecturer first at the Escola de Belas Artes and then at the Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto, a refined intellectual and prolific writer. Despite his early arrival on the international scene, especially in the decades immediately after World War II, and notwithstanding his authoritative standing in his homeland, his choice to work specifically in the region where he was born and had always lived made it difficult for him to become known abroad, his fame deriving mostly from his being a “teacher” of famous “pupils” such as Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. In recent years, thanks to the efforts of his heirs and the Marques da Silva Foundation, which holds his archive, there have been a number of scientific studies on every aspect of his work.
The wealth of these new excavations and recent, fundamental publications such as the critical and anastatic edition of the Diario di Bordo (Matosinhos 2012) or the impressive volume “O Meu caso” Arquitectura, imperativo ético do ser 1937-1947 (Porto 2020), which have made new archive material available, rather than exhausting the historical-critical topics related to Távora’s work, have shed light on its richness and breadth, suggesting countless possible lines of research.

The issue is published on the occasion of the Centennial of Fernando Tavora’s birth (2023) and organised in partnership with the Scientific Committee of the Italian Centennial, hosted by the Dipartimento di Architettura Università di Bologna, Departamento de Arquitectura Universidade de Coimbra, Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto, Fundação Marques da Silva, Politecnico di Milano Polo Territoriale di Mantova.
The Committee promotes a programme of events aimed at re-evaluating Távora’s legacy and contribution to the culture and architecture of the postwar decades. The papers submitted will undergo a blind peer review with the support of the Committee.
The issue aims to receive contributions dealing with any aspect of Fernando Tavora’s biographical trajectory, as well as with themes and episodes of the history of postwar architecture that bear relevant connections with the most important issues behind Távora’s work.
We will particularly welcome papers capable of broadening the palette of existing interpretations and re-conceptualising Távora’s contribution to postwar architecture. Special attention will also be given to papers that focus on a close analysis of available archival sources, as well as uncovering new ones. We finally encourage direct investigations of built and unbuilt works that were overlooked by the previous studies.
Many research topics link Távora’s work to the broader questions that were at the centre of international debates on architecture in the postwar decades. Papers might want to address some of these issues from a specific angle.
In addition to historical research, readings and interpretations by designers interested in Távora and his relevance will be taken into account.

Relevant themes include
1. Távora “Archipelago”. Recent publications have shed light – even more widely than was known from his writings and his activities as a lecturer and conference speaker – on the rich framework of cultural references outside the discipline of architecture. In addition to his being, in his own words, “Pessoan” – also being an important collector of Fernando Pessoa – there are numerous philosophical and literary references in his private writings, from Oswald Spengler to Ortega y Gasset, from Luís de Camões to Abel Salazar, from Henry Bergson to Teixeira de Pascoaes to name but a few of the recurring authors, especially in the formative phase of his cultural project.
2. Walking, observing, understanding. Távora considers travel – conceived as a joyful collective experience, of teaching or sharing interests – to be an “indispensable” practice for an architect’s training, and throughout his life he combined it with design research and teaching. Travel brought a wealth of cosmopolitan references to Távora’s designs: from the “Great Tradition” of the axis of Greece, Rome and Europe to his interest in anonymous, ordinary architecture and in Japan or in overseas cultures, references that were skilfully combined with Portuguese traditions. But the habit of travelling also gave a methodology to his design that was evident in his work and central to his teaching: walking in places, crossing them repeatedly and carefully in the company of the “client” – an individual or a community – as a decisive exploratory and creative act.
3. “But I know this and I also know the opposite”. The structure of Távora’s thought and design makes the use of the term “master” interesting and complex, both because of the figures to whom it refers as he was trained – Raúl Lino, Carlos Ramos, Le Corbusier, Wright, Lucio Costa, Alvar Aalto, Italian “realism” – and because of his subsequent role as a guiding figure in the culture of Portuguese design in the second half of the 20th century. It is perhaps more correct to refer, as he does, to the model of the heteronymous personality that has Pessoa as its matrix: “a curious phenomenon like being identical to yourself when you are many. Paradoxically, it is a necessity of identity”.
4. A small, simple work made by men for other men. The theme of a return of design to anonymity or to a structure of collective work that goes beyond the domain of the artistic personality is central to Távora’s entire design and theoretical production. On the one hand, the theme links him to other designers who were working on and experimenting with it in the same period of time, like Coderch and Rogers, figures he had a direct interest in. On the other hand, the theme makes his relationship with the masters of the early 20th century, and especially with Le Corbusier, complex and productive. But there are many other themes that punctuate Távora’s “return to the Anonymous”: from his interest in Portuguese popular architecture to his activity in the field of restoration, from the radical rethinking of the discipline initiated with his text on the Organisation of Space to the exercises in heteronymy that can be found in his built works. The profound reason for this research stems from his estrangement from postwar, positivist and analytical American society and his commitment to a social assimilation of interest in architectural culture. This theme also implies a reflection on Távora’s relationship with the positions of Bruno Zevi.
5. Teaching. When Távora took over ESBAP from Carlos Ramos in the 1960s, he circumvented the legislative and regulatory dictates of the Regime and led it towards a new pedagogy of architecture radically centred on practice. From the break with the 1957 reform initiated in 1968 and elaborated during the so-called Experiência of the early 1970s, to the birth of the FAUP in 1977, the role played by Távora is central and inescapable in order to understand both the roots and the recent developments
of the teaching of architectural design in Portugal, including in the perspective of the international interest that Portuguese architectural culture has achieved since the mid-1970s.

Contributions will be accepted in English, Portuguese and Italian.

Papers should be submitted using https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register

The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:
• Applicant’s name
• Professional affiliation
• Title of paper
• Abstract
• 5 keywords
• A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)
Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 80,000 characters). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section.
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

To addressed questions to the editors:
redazione.hpa@unibo.it

1923-2023 Centenário de Nascimento Fernando Távora

Fernando Távora nasceu no Porto a 25 de Agosto de 1923. Protagonista da arquitetura
portuguesa da segunda metade do Século XX, Távora é autor de dezenas de obras
construídas — a maior parte no norte de Portugal —, foi uma personalidade eminente
como arquiteto, como professor, como estudioso da cidade e do território, como intelectual
e como literato. Lecionou na Escola de Belas Artes do Porto e depois na Faculdade
de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto, no Departamento de Arquitetura da
Universidade de Coimbra e na Escola de Arquitetura da Universidade do Minho, em
Guimarães. Não obstante a sua presença precoce na cena internacional, sobretudo
nas décadas do imediato pós segunda guerra, e a despeito da autoridade e do reconhecimento
que sempre lhes foram conferidos no seu próprio país, a escolha de trabalhar
especificamente na região onde nasceu e sempre viveu tornou difícil, durante
algum tempo, o reconhecimento da sua figura no estrangeiro, confinando-o à sua
circunstância de “mestre” de diversas gerações de arquitetos, em especial de figuras
como Álvaro Siza e Eduardo Souto Moura. Nos últimos anos, graças aos esforços dos
seus herdeiros e da Fundação Marques da Silva, que detém o seu espólio arquitetónico,
multiplicaram-se os estudos científicos sobre muitos aspectos da sua obra.
A riqueza destas novas pesquisas e de algumas fundamentais publicações recentes,
tais como a edição crítica e anastática do Diário “de Bordo” (Matosinhos 2012) ou o
imponente volume “O Meu caso” Arquitectura Imperativo Ético do Ser 1937-1947 (Porto
2020), que tornaram disponível novos materiais de arquivo e, mais do que esgotar
as temáticas histórico-críticas ligadas à obra de Távora, evidenciaram a sua riqueza
e a sua amplitude, sugerindo inúmeras linhas de investigação.

O número da Revista será publicado por ocasião do Centenário do Nascimento de
Fernando Távora (2023), em parceria com a Comissão Científica do Centenário Italiano,
organizado pelo Dipartimento di Architettura Università di Bologna, pelo Departamento
de Arquitectura Universidade de Coimbra, pela Faculdade de Arquitetura
da Universidade do Porto, pela Fundação Marques da Silva e pelo Politecnico di
Milano Polo Territoriale di Mantova.
A Comissão Científica promoverá um programa de eventos, centrado na reavaliação
do legado de Távora e na sua contribuição para a cultura e a arquitetura das décadas
do segundo pós-guerra. Os artigos candidatados serão objeto de uma revisão cega
por pares, com o apoio da comissão. O número pretende contributos que se centrem
em aspetos da trajetória biográfica, bem como em temas e episódios da história da
arquitetura do pós-guerra, que possam estabelecer relações relevantes com os principais
assuntos subjacentes ao trabalho de Fernando Távora.
Serão particularmente bem acolhidos os artigos que possam alargar o leque existente
de interpretações e re-conceptualizar a contribuição de Távora para a arquitetura
do pós-guerra. Também será dada especial atenção aos textos que se focarem na
análise das fontes arquivísticas existentes, bem como na revelação de novas fontes.
Por fim, encorajam-se investigações diretas sobre obras, construídas ou não construídas,
que foram negligenciadas por estudos anteriores.
Muitos tópicos de pesquisa relacionam a obra de Távora com questões mais alargadas,
que centraram o debate internacional nas décadas do pós-guerra. Os artigos
poderão dirigir-se a alguns destes temas, sob perspetivas mais específicas.
Serão tidas em consideração, para além das investigações de carácter histórico, leituras
e interpretações de projetistas interessados na figura de Távora e na sua atualidade.

Os temas relevantes incluem:
1. “Arquipélago” Távora. Dos seus escritos, das suas aulas e conferências, conhecia-se
já o riquíssimo quadro de referências culturais externas ao âmbito disciplinar da
arquitetura, que algumas publicações recentes vieram evidenciar ainda mais. Para
além da personalidade, segundo as suas próprias palavras “pessoano” — sendo Fernando
Pessoa também um importante colecionador — as referências filosóficas e literárias
multiplicam-se nos seus escritos privados, desde Oswald Spengler a Ortega
y Gasset, desde Luís de Camões a Abel Salazar, desde Henry Bergson a Teixeira de
Pascoaes, para referir só alguns dos autores recorrentes, sobretudo na fase de construção
do seu projeto cultural.
2. Caminhar, observar, compreender. Távora considera a viagem — concebida como
uma agradável experiência coletiva, de aprendizagem ou de partilha de interesses
comuns — uma prática “indispensável” à formação do arquiteto e, ao longo da sua
vida, associa-a á pesquisa projetual e à atividade de professor. A viagem representa,
no projeto de Távora, uma colheita de referências cosmopolitas: da “Grande Tradição”
do eixo Grécia – Roma – Europa ao interesse pela arquitetura anónima; ao interesse
pelo Japão ou pelas culturas de outros continentes, referências sempre sabiamente
conjugadas e comparadas com a cultura e a tradição portuguesas. Mas este gosto
pela viagem trás também para a prática do projeto uma indicação metodológica,
que se evidencia nas suas obras e é fundamental no seu magistério: caminhar nos
lugares, percorrê-los repetida e atentamente em companhia do cliente — individual
ou coletivo —, como ato determinante, simultaneamente de análise e de projeto.
3. “Mas eu sei isso e também sei o contrário”. A estrutura do pensamento e do projeto de
Távora torna apelativo e complexo o uso do termo “mestre”, seja pelas referências que
usa na sua formação — Raúl Lino, Carlos Ramos, Le Corbusier, Wright, Lúcio Costa, Alvar
Aalto, o “realismo” italiano — seja pelo seu papel, sucessivamente assumido, de figura
guia da cultura arquitetónica portuense da segunda metade do Século XX. Talvez
seja pertinente o recurso, como ele próprio refere, ao modelo da personalidade heterónima
que tem Pessoa como matriz: “fenómeno curioso de um tipo ser idêntico a si
próprio quando ele é muitos. Isso paradoxalmente é uma necessidade de identidade.”

4. “Uma pequena e simples obra feita por homens para homens”. O tema de um retorno
do projeto ao anonimato ou a uma estrutura de obra coletiva, que supere o
domínio da personalidade artística, é central a toda a produção, teórica e projetual,
de Távora. Por um lado, relaciona-o com outros projetistas que o trabalham e experimentam
no mesmo arco temporal, pensando por exemplo em Coderch e em Rogers,
personagens pelas quais revela interesse direto. Por outro lado, o tema torna complexa
e produtiva a sua relação com os mestres da primeira metade do Século XX,
e com Le Corbusier em especial. Mas muitos outros temas assinalam o “regresso
ao Anónimo” perseguido por Távora: desde o interesse pela arquitetura popular portuguesa
à atividade no âmbito do restauro; desde o radical repensar da disciplina,
iniciado com o texto sobre Da Organização do Espaço aos exercícios de heteronímia
que podem ser encontrados nas suas obras construídas. A razão profunda de uma tal
investigação deriva também do estranhamento da sociedade americana pós-bélica,
positivista e analítica e do empenhamento pela assimilação social do interesse pela
cultura arquitetónica. Este tema implica também uma reflexão sobre a relação de
Távora com as posições de Bruno Zevi.
5. O ensino da arquitetura. Quando Távora assumiu o legado da ESBAP de Carlos
Ramos nos anos 60, contornou os ditames legislativos e regulamentares do Regime,
conduzindo-a para uma nova pedagogia da arquitetura, radicalmente centrada na
prática e ainda não cabalmente estudada. Desde a rotura com a Reforma de 1957,
levada a cabo em 1968 e elaborada ao longo da designada Experiência dos primeiros
anos da década, até ao nascimento da FAUP em 1977, o papel desempenhado
por Távora é central e imprescindível para compreender tanto as raízes como os recentes
desenvolvimentos do ensino do projeto de arquitetura em Portugal, também
na ótica do interesse que a cultura arquitetónica portuguesa desperta, a partir da
segunda metade da década de 1970.
Serão aceites contributos escritos em inglês, italiano e português.

1923-2023 Centenario dalla nascita di Fernando Távora

Fernando Távora nasce a Porto il 25 agosto del 1923. Protagonista della architettura
portoghese del Secondo Novecento, Távora è autore di decine di opere costruite – per
la maggior parte situate nel Portogallo del Nord -, urbanista, docente di spicco, prima
nella Escola de Belas Artes e poi nella Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade
do Porto, nel Departamento de Arquitetura da Universidade de Coimbra e poi nella
Escola de Arquitetura da Universidade do Minho, em Guimarães, era anche raffinato
intellettuale e scrittore prolifico. Nonostante la sua precoce presenza sulla scena
internazionale, soprattutto nei decenni dell’immediato Secondo Dopoguerra, e a
dispetto della autorevolezza e del ruolo sempre riconosciutogli in patria, la scelta di
operare sullo specifico della regione in cui era nato e sempre vissuto ha reso a lungo
difficile l’apprezzamento della sua figura all’estero affidandone la fama soprattutto al
suo essere “maestro” di celebri “allievi” quali Álvaro Siza e Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Negli ultimi anni, grazie all’impegno degli eredi e della Fondazione Marques da Silva,
che ne custodisce l’archivio, gli studi scientifici su ogni aspetto della sua opera si
sono moltiplicati.
La ricchezza di questi nuovi scavi e di recenti, fondamentali pubblicazioni quali
l’edizione critica e anastatica del Diario “di Bordo” (Matosinhos 2012) o l’imponente
volume “O Meu caso” Arquitectura, imperativo ético do ser 1937-1947 (Porto 2020)
che hanno reso disponibili nuovi materiali d’archivio, piuttosto che esaurire i temi
storico-critici legati all’opera di Távora, ne hanno evidenziato la ricchezza e l’ampiezza
suggerendo innumerevoli linee di ricerca possibile.

I temi di interesse includono
1. “Arcipelago” Távora. Pubblicazioni recenti hanno fatto emergere, più ampiamente
di quanto già si conoscesse dai suoi scritti e dalla sua attività di docente e conferenziere,
il ricco quadro di riferimenti culturali esterni all’ambito disciplinare della
architettura. Oltre al suo essere, secondo le sue stesse parole, “pessoano” – essendo
di Fernando Pessoa anche un importante collezionista - i riferimenti filosofici e letterari
si moltiplicano nei suoi scritti privati, da Oswald Spengler a Ortega y Gasset,
da Luís de Camões ad Abel Salazar, da Henry Bergson a Teixeira de Pascoaes per
citare solo alcuni degli autori ricorrenti, soprattutto nella fase di formazione del suo
progetto culturale.
2. Camminare, osservare, comprendere. Távora considera il viaggio – concepito
come una gioiosa esperienza collettiva, di insegnamento o di condivisione d’interessi
- una pratica “indispensabile” per la formazione dell’architetto e, per tutta
la vita, la affianca alla ricerca progettuale e alla attività di insegnamento. Il viaggio
porta, nel progetto di Távora una ricchezza di riferimenti cosmopoliti: dalla “Grande
Tradizione” dell’asse Grecia, Roma, Europa, all’interesse per l’architettura anonima
e ordinaria, all’interesse per il Giappone o le culture d’oltremare, riferimenti sapientemente
coniugati con le tradizioni portoghesi. Ma l’abitudine al viaggio porta nella
pratica del progetto anche una indicazione metodologica evidente nella sua opera e
centrale nel suo magistero: il camminare nei luoghi, il loro attraversamento ripetuto
e attento, in compagnia dal “cliente” – un singolo come una comunità- -, come atto
conoscitivo e creativo determinante.
3. “Ma io so questo e so anche il contrario”. La struttura del pensiero e del progetto di
Távora rende interessante e complesso l’uso del termine “maestro” sia per le figure
cui, formandosi, si riferisce – Raúl Lino, Carlos Ramos, Le Corbusier, Wright, Lucio
Costa, Alvar Aalto, il “realismo” italiano - sia per il suo ruolo, successivamente assunto,
di figura guida nella cultura progettuale portuense del Secondo Novecento. È forse
più corretto riferirsi, come lui stesso fa, al modello della personalità eteronima che
ha come matrice Pessoa: “un fenomeno curioso del tipo essere identico a sé stesso
quando si è molti. Paradossalmente, è una necessità di identità.”

4. “Una piccola e semplice opera fatta da uomini per altri uomini”. Il tema di un ritorno
del progetto all’anonimato ovvero a una struttura di opera collettiva che superi
il dominio della personalità artistica è centrale in tutta la produzione, progettuale e
teorica, di Távora. Da un lato il tema lo mette in rapporto con altri progettisti che lo
elaborano e sperimentano nello stesso arco temporale, si pensi solamente a Coderch
e a Rogers, figure per cui ha un diretto interesse. Dall’altro lato il tema rende complesso
e produttivo il suo rapporto con i maestri del primo Novecento e con Le Corbusier
in particolare. Ma molti altri sono i temi che punteggiano il “ritorno all’Anonimo”
perseguito da Távora: dall’interesse per l’architettura popolare portoghese alla attività
nell’ambito del restauro, dal radicale ripensamento della disciplina avviato con
il testo sulla Organizzazione dello spazio agli esercizi di eteronimia rintracciabili
nelle sue opere costruite. La ragione profonda di tale ricerca deriva dal suo allontanamento
dalla società americana postbellica, positivista e analitica e dall’impegno per
una assimilazione sociale dell’interesse per la cultura architettonica. Un tema che
implica una riflessione anche sul rapporto che Távora intrattiene con le posizioni di
Bruno Zevi.
5. L’insegnamento. Quando Távora, nel corso degli Anni Sessanta, raccoglie da Carlos
Ramos l’eredità della ESBAP, aggirando i dettami legislativi e normativi del Regime,
la conduce verso una nuova pedagogia dell’architettura, radicalmente centrata sulla
pratica. Dalla rottura con la riforma del 1957 avviata nel 1968 ed elaborata nel corso
della cosiddetta Experiência dei primi anni Settanta, fino alla nascita della FAUP nel
1977, il ruolo svolto da Távora è centrale e ineludibile per comprendere tanto le radici
quanto gli sviluppi recenti dell’insegnamento del progetto di architettura in Portogallo
anche nella prospettiva dell’interesse internazionale che la cultura architettonica
portoghese ottiene a partire dalla metà degli anni Settanta.
Saranno accettati contributi in lingua inglese, portoghese e italiana.

Leonardo Ricci - Call for Papers - HPA 10/2021

Fri, 21 May 2021 14:28:02 +0200

Leonardo Ricci (1918-1994), eclectic figure in the architectural study of the postwar period in Italy and abroad, received his education under the guidance of Giovanni Michelucci in Florence, where he had several academic assignments starting from 1945. He was Director of the Town Planning Institute from 1965, Head of the Faculty of Architecture from 1971 and visiting professor at M.I.T. (1959-1960), Pennsylvania State University (1965-1969), University of Florida (1969-1972), and Kentucky University (1972-1980s). George Braziller, editor of Ricci’s book Anonymous (XX century) (1962) defined him as “a visionary profoundly concerned with the state of twentieth-century man in what he consider[ed] to be a time of transition between an old civilization and a new civilization struggling to be born.… He [saw] architecture as a creative act, and the obligation of the architect to make the actions of man come alive”.

Ricci strongly believed in the potential of art, architecture, and the synthesis of the arts to build a suitable world for the 20th-century man. His work ranged from designing community space during the postwar reconstruction in Italy to microstructural models as a response to a growing need in contemporary architectural culture.

His work across the decades could be understood through the “form-act” design method, which was founded on the refusal of a priori forms and on the belief that morphological results could be achieved after analysing human actions and activities.
Leonardo Ricci’s existential position shifted from the search for a new vision of the world and spread to architecture after World War II, apparently detached from the study of the human soul yet deeply involved in the fervour associated with the city.

His conception of “anonymous architecture” marked a precise effort to achieve a necessary change in architecture and urban planning by investigating the field of Visual and Urban Design.

Histories of Postwar Architecture Open Lab contributed to the celebrations for Leonardo Ricci’s centenary in 2018 by participating in studies and contributing to the digitisation and cataloguing of the materials kept at Casa Studio Ricci (Monterinaldi, Florence) thanks to the gracious permission of Clementina Ricci and Gerd Ricci, granddaughter and daughter-in-law of the architect, with the support of Fondazione Michelucci.

In agreement with the mentioned partners, to which the CSAC must be added, the issue will include the publication of a selection of archival materials gathered for the RICCI100 initiatives.

The issue is open to contributions relating to every aspect of Leonardo Ricci’s multifaceted activities and has the goal of stimulating a debate on his eclectic figure of architect, painter, scenographer, teacher and visual, urban and interior designer in order to produce a complete overview of his works and to consider his legacy.

Papers should be submitted using https://hpa.unibo.it/user/register
The guidelines for paper submission are available at
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the informations required as:
• Applicant’s name
• Professional affiliation
• Title of paper
• Abstract
• 5 keywords
• A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)
Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 80,000 characters). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all informations about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on. All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section.
https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

Authors must submit directly full papers by December 31, 2021
Accepted authors will be notified by January 31, 2022
Publication is expected to be in June 2022
To addressed questions to the editors:
redazione.hpa@unibo.it

Impatient Cities of the Gulf: Post-oil Architecture in Flux - Call for Papers - HPA 8/2021

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Today’s general perception of Gulf cities is based on the assumption of a futuristic vision; a visionary development and a cluster of hi-tech constructions.

Since the striking of oil, this ‘brave new world’ has been a testing ground for experimental, risk imbued architecture and real estate. The sudden affluence and ambition of the rulers to demonstrate progress and social advancements (sometimes expressed through outlandish ‘iconic’ designs) has certainly fired this drive. The building of cities seemed an appropriate culvert for the vast funds generated, turning what was once barren into a fertile land.

Furthermore, there is an ever-present sense of the ‘tabula-rasa approach’ that forced (or perhaps tempted) architects to pursue different and alternative design processes. Gulf cities seem to permit the idea, if not always the reality, of being able to ‘start again’, to be re-made, re-imagined and re-Modernised. There is a sense of being forever in the ‘now’, with ‘historical’ projects stretching back mere decades. Perhaps this desire to continually reinvent brought about shortcomings in early Modernist paradigms, and the rapid rise of new social/cultural/artistic concepts (such as pop art/metabolism/structuralism/post-modernism/idiosyncratic and so on).

These preliminary reflections offer an image of the Gulf as a fluid ambit that challenged designers for several decades in the light of a central question: how do architects build in a place with a constantly changing context? How are ideas of history, tradition, memory, and heritage constructed in this flux?

In the second half of the 20^th century, the circumstantial conditions generated a series of experimental, utopian, sometimes unbuildable projects with a high level of idealisation. Some are renowned such proposals as Wright’s plan for Baghdad or the Smithsons’ Kuwait mat-building. Many are still to be unearthed as they were shelved and never implemented, or abandoned along the way, altered or demolished.

In other cases, the region's specific constraints - such as limited material availability, narrow construction time and harsh climate, led architects to original ideas, technologies, and procurement methods with highly inventive and analytical processes.

Moreover, modern architecture in the Gulf seems somehow different for sporting an urge for negotiating the local context by ‘flirting’ with traditional elements of locality, such as geometrical motifs, shapes, textures or colour palette. The liberal application of decorative motifs, patterns, applied ornamentation needs careful examination, especially when it is so diligently applied to forms and arrangements more generally associated with a more austere modernist agenda.

The editors invite papers that extend the discussion on the Gulf built environment during the modernisation era, over the duality global/local as terms in opposition. Contributions are encouraged to analyse different architectural narratives, approaches and schools of thought to compensate the assumption that flattens ‘modernity’ as a one-directional, repetitive and monotone practice acquired and acritically transplanted into the Arab Peninsula.

Focusing on the second half of the 20^th century, and with an eye on the contemporary implications, possible topics include, but they are not limited to:

- Experimental and inventive design practices

- Global aspiration and local constraints

- Context negotiation

- Materiality

- Knowledge exchanges and bijective practices

- Modernity, tradition and transition

- De-colonial urbanism

- Identity formation and the built environment

- Place-making, streetscapes and scale

Authors must submit directly full papers using hpa.unibo.it.

The guidelines for paper submission are available at https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the information required as:

• Applicant’s name

• Professional affiliation

• Title of paper

• Abstract

• 5 keywords

• A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)

Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 4,200 and 8,500 words). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all information about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on.

All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section. https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

To addressed questions to the editors:
roberto.fabbri@udem.edu
Iain.Jackson@liverpool.ac.uk

- 31 December: Deadline for paper submission

- January: Notification of acceptance

- January-March: Peer-review process

- April-May: Copy editing and proofreading

- June 2021: Publication

Committed, Politicized, or Operative: Figures of Engagement in Criticism from 1945 to Today - Call for Papers - HPA 7/2020

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Issue edited by Hélène Jannière (Université Rennes 2) and Paolo Scrivano (Politecnico di Milano)

Call for paper deadline: July 31, 2020

NEW DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

In a 1995 article on the renewal of architectural criticism, French architect and critic Bernard Huet referred to Charles Baudelaire to define art criticism as necessarily – in the poet’s words – “partial, impassionate, political”. During the 1990s, perhaps as a reaction to the 1980s, when in many specialized publications architectural criticism was identified as “communication” or even as promotion of architects and architectures, it emerged an extensive nostalgia for a notion of criticism associated to the historical avant-gardes. In this “committed” criticism or in the “politicized” one it was possible to emphasize the critic’s influential and active role in discovering, promoting, and intellectually supporting groups of artists or architects. The idea of a “golden age” of criticism has thus spread, being from time to time related to the end of the 19^th century, to the 1920s, and to the 1960s and 1970s.

This issue of HPA intends to collect studies devoted to historical examples of “committed” and “politicized” criticism, reflecting on the real meanings of these concepts and on the themes and subjects to which they are tied. On the one hand, the figure of “committed” critic might be linked to the art and architecture avant-gardes from the end of the 19^th century onward, hence defining a privileged relationship between critic and artist/architect; on the other, “politicized” criticism can be characterized as the understanding in political terms of architectural and city phenomena. Among the questions the issue wants to address are: in which way do these definitions of “committed” and “politicized” criticism come close to or differ from the definition of “operative” criticism, in the various meanings that have been attributed to it since Manfredo Tafuri? What are the theoretical tools, the rhetorical constructions, and the intellectual and political references of “committed” and “politicized” criticism? Should the latter be necessarily bound to the author’s belonging to a party or political group? What are their principal ways of circulation (specialized periodicals, journals, targeted actions)? In which measure did “politicized” criticism influence architecture’s historical narrative? And finally, what are the interlacements and the convergences between criticism’s intellectual and artistic engagement and the political commitment?

The issue of HPA intends to include contributions dealing with specific case studies or themes, with a periodization that spans from the end of the Second World War to the present date.

Authors must submit directly full papers using hpa.unibo.it.

The guidelines for paper submission are available at https://hpa.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Please, fill in the author’s profile with all the information required as:

• Applicant’s name

• Professional affiliation

• Title of paper

• Abstract

• 5 keywords

• A brief CV (max 2,000 characters)

Please submit the proposal in the form of MS Word (length between 20,000 and 50,000 characters). The submitted paper must be anonymous. Please delete from the text and file’s properties all information about name, administrator etc. Papers should clearly define the argument in relation to the available literature and indicate the sources which the paper is based on.

All papers received will go through a process of double-blind peer review before publication.

HPA also looks for contributions for the review section. https://hpa.unibo.it/about/editorialPolicies#sectionPolicies

- 31 July: Deadline for paper submission

- September: Notification of acceptance

- September-October: Peer-review process

- November-December: Copy editing and proofreading

- December 2020: Publication