Crónicas do Azul. Uma viagem através de um projecto de arquitetura de Manuel Graça Dias

Abstract

Starting with the objective of characterizing and highlighting the project practise and consequent architectonic production of the Portuguese architect Manuel Graça Dias, this research finds in the Municipal Theatre Joaquim Benite, in Almada, a central 'object' of study capable of stimulating the intended reflections. As if it were a genealogical analysis, this study starts with a tool that was considered essential to the design process of Manuel Graça Dias: the croquis. The drawings are understood as an instrument subordinate to the project practice and a fundamental mediator between the idealized and the materialized. It is understood that the DNA of this architecture is also diluted in its author's own genetics. Thus, we considered the analysis of various geographical contexts and some 'characters' that have changed the history of Manuel Graça Dias, as an important subject for the understanding and characterization of the central theme of this study. From the spatial experiences gathered during the visit to the central 'object' of the dissertation, we built a series of chronicles or narratives of Architecture, from which six readings were selected and refined that were considered essential to answer the central objective established here. The documentary collection built up during the production of this study, which should be understood as the crucial basis of the work, from which the words for the formulation of the synthesis presented here were found, will remain available as an open field of study on which to pursue new questions.