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A self-conscious architectural historiography: notes from (post)modern Portugal
This article examines the process by which the history of modern architecture in Portugal has crystallised into an easy-to-digest narrative: a linear, action-reaction plot in which a purportedly feeble modernism in the 1920s was succeeded by a conservative, politically driven anti-modern backlash in the following decade, and finally returned as a superficial and alienating postwar anachronism. The article suggests that architectural culture in Portugal in fact requires this narrative to celebrate its subsequent step, the reinvention and redemption of modernism by exponents such as Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza Vieira, whose work was later brought to global recognition under the mantle of critical regionalism. The foundations of this origin story can be traced to the influential work of pioneer architecture critic Nuno Portas in the 1970s, which was thereafter perpetuated in historiography both at home and abroad. Nurtured by Portuguese architectural culture, the narrative of a thwarted modernism underpinned more recent arguments against postmodernism, clearing the ground for a neo-modernist (re)turn that still prevails today. The trope of an officially resisted modernism, a trauma in Portuguese architects’ collective conscience, was eventually instrumental in confining Portuguese works and designers to western historiographical categories, thereby flattening instances of variation and diversity that escape such neat plots.
A self-conscious architectural historiography: notes from (post)modern Portugal
This article examines the process by which the history of modern architecture in Portugal has crystallised into an easy-to-digest narrative: a linear, action-reaction plot in which a purportedly feeble modernism in the 1920s was succeeded by a conservative, politically driven anti-modern backlash in the following decade, and finally returned as a superficial and alienating postwar anachronism. The article suggests that architectural culture in Portugal in fact requires this narrative to celebrate its subsequent step, the reinvention and redemption of modernism by exponents such as Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza Vieira, whose work was later brought to global recognition under the mantle of critical regionalism. The foundations of this origin story can be traced to the influential work of pioneer architecture critic Nuno Portas in the 1970s, which was thereafter perpetuated in historiography both at home and abroad. Nurtured by Portuguese architectural culture, the narrative of a thwarted modernism underpinned more recent arguments against postmodernism, clearing the ground for a neo-modernist (re)turn that still prevails today. The trope of an officially resisted modernism, a trauma in Portuguese architects’ collective conscience, was eventually instrumental in confining Portuguese works and designers to western historiographical categories, thereby flattening instances of variation and diversity that escape such neat plots.
A self-conscious architectural historiography: notes from (post)modern Portugal
Agarez, Ricardo Costa (author)
The Journal of Architecture ; 25 ; 1089-1114
2020-11-16
26 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
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