Entre público e privado - a arquitectura doméstica de Marques da Silva no Porto.

Abstract

In your individuality, house appears simultaneously as a reflection of a time, a moral and a society. Exploring the domestic housing evolution, the transformations occurred between the XVII and XX centuries, determine new concepts that remain until nowadays. The progressive affirmation of the man as an individual, exalts the idea of private life, materialized in the home concept. In this sense, an all new value was attributed to the interior conception and to the comfort notion, which concerns to home the aim of experience a new sociability in its family isolation. Analysing the portuguese housing context during the beginning of the XX century, the architect José Marques da Silva appears as an important character. The architectural production taken part in Oporto demonstrates the portuguese architect ability to update and test his knowledge in the domestic space. Based on the study of ten Marques da Silva housing projects at Oporto, we pretend to understand the particularities that define a new space conception that allows the public and private confluence in the housing projects. Taken the intimate preservation as a fundamental value, the study focus on the home internal organization where a reformulation of the articulation and spacial distibution qualify the relations between the multiple actors, controlling the different level of sociability at home. Accordind to the all representative side of the bourgeois domestic project between the XIX and XX centuries the architect becomes the theater director, capable of leading the role of characters - family and guests - acting on a stage that is home.