Significado e Sentido na obra de Lacaton e Vassal

Abstract

This work sets itself up for a reading and analysis of the work of Lacaton & Vassal. There is an attempt to understand the underlying values to their architecture and in what way this translation occurs. It is divided into three parts. In PART I (chapters 1, 2 and 3), the formal or conceptual relationship between the work of L&V and other architectural work is analysed, as well as architects, tendencies and architectural languages of the recent past and of today, whose meaning is already known to the world. This will act as a frame, or rather as an introduction to Lacaton & Vassal, and will present some assumptions from which the work evolves. But it also includes a purpose that sets itself apart from others: to anticipate as many readings as possible - similarly to other architectural objects- that could interfere, though subconsciously, as background noise in the reading of its languages internal analysis (PART II of this work). In this part it is questioned, for example, whether L&V's work relates to Brutalist architecture and not to the more recent Deconstructive tendency, as it seems. In PART II (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9), after case analysis and interpretation, part of it is presented and shaped as a route towards the identification of themes, characteristics and meanings that define L&V's work -a kind of a logical sequence, where constants were maintained and where exceptions and variations unfold gradually and perceptively, thus showing how they interpret architectural language. Here we learn, for instance, what a square, a shack, a water drill and a greenhouse have in common. In the CONCLUSION, the final reading of L&V's work is described. Chapter 10 focuses on the conclusions drawn from PART II and Chapter 11 combines this information with PART I's. On Chapter 12 there is a note on Meaning and Sense and the final conclusion/ synthesis.