Conhecimento e Memória: uma reflexão sobre a obra de Eduardo Souto Moura

Abstract

The present dissertation pretends to focus on topics related to the past knowledge and tradition, associated with the individual memory of the architect as creators of new concepts and producers of knowledge for the present. This essay is based on the study of Eduardo Souto de Moura's work, with the purpose of identifying themes of architectural tradition that are dislocated and appropriated for the contemporary production. For this, it is done a short observation of Souto de Moura's first works, having as a foundation the 'Reuse of a Ruin in Gerês' (1980), where the project' subject is the ruin, whose poetic feeling is associated to the following projects, such as 'The Conversion of the Municipal Market' and the 'Café of Municipal Market' in Braga, as well as the 'Casa das Artes' in Porto, in which the themes of ruin and the relationship with the surrounding space, be it rural or urban, establish contact points between the works. After this first approach, it is necessary to understand Souto de Moura's first influences. They had a major importance in the establishment of his library of knowledge. Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza Vieira are two of his closest and most direct influences. There is also the need to understand his theoretical backgrounds, symbols of the modern and neoclassic architecture, like Mies Van der Rohe, Aldo Rossi and Friedrich Schinkel. Only with this understanding can one establish an articulation between the theoretical acquired knowledge and the future architectural production, which is then interpreted, focusing on the production of the unifamiliar housing, theme frequently found on his work. The observation of some of Souto de Moura's unifamiliar housing works is divided in characteristic concepts of the architectural tradition that were then displaced and adapted to his production and to the establishment of new concepts in a relation of continuity. The themes studied are clustered in three concepts, exemplified with works of unifamiliar housing, creating relationships among them, in a web of articulated information: The Ruin, Nature and the Unfinished Time; The Backyard, the wall and the relationship with the exterior; The relationship with the place and its culture. By observing these themes, with its examples and the relationship between them, there is the intent to establish a connection between Souto de Moura's acquired knowledge, his personal memories and his architectural production. There is also the purpose to find out how changes, established along his work, can be a reflexion of his personal experience and the gathering of knowledge.