Olhar o passado em defesa do futuro

Abstract

To be "sustainable" is not a post-modern attitude. Architecture relies, more than ever, in the relearning of the Modern Era critical spirit and the revisiting of the past, to proof that an architectural work does not depend on a key concept. Instead, it depends on "being born", paraphrasing Távora, "from the people and from the land", in accordance with conditioning factors established by the surroundings. In the 60s, a new posture, linking conscience and responsability, was born to assure the return of dwelling quality, the respect for nature and the central position of Men, promoting the focus on the features of places, for a "present" architecture free of a negative impact on the future. "Sustainability" was presented as a rescue against the International Modern Architecture, known for its destruction habilities towards all forms of architeture based on identity, on the place, on the people and the sensitivity regarding Regional Architecture, born of the symbiosis between necessity and rationalism. It seemed a rational stance, were it not for the possibility of modern architecture to prove that such features can be felt in a touching variety of languages and interventions left to posterity by the revered masters of the 20th century architects, and that "sustainability" concerns as always proven to exist in the works of Architects both in the World, such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, and in Portugal, Raul Lino, Fernando Távora, Alfredo Viana de Lima or Álvaro Siza Vieira. In opposition to the internacional post-war movement and the reflexion (achieved at the epicenter of modernism - CIAM - as in Portugal, specially from the I Congress of Nacional Architecture, in 48) that architecture must hear the echoes of the "Heart of the City" and learn from the historical past and the history of places, in appreciation of the conection between erudition and popular knowledge. Through a renewed look at the steps taken in the architecture of the first International and Portuguese modernity of the 20th century, we intend to prove the timelessness of the so-called "sustainable" arguments.