The New School: um espaço de continuidade na educação. Reflexão sobre a Escola de Alfred Roth entre Suíça e Portugal

Abstract

The school described by swiss architect Alfred Roth (1903-1998) in his book The New School / Das Neue Schulhaus / La Nouvelle École (1950, Zurich) goes beyond the school building. It is perceived as an integral piece of the city, with a highly public role. This broadness of human and urban intentions invites architects to reconsider the way they design school spaces. In the politically and culturally turbulent post-war context in Europe and Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal, a new generation of architects emerged, concerned with responding quickly to both the common and individual needs of society. This architecture reflects a humanistic and functional mindset, both in construction and urbanism. For the first time, the question of school building is studied with the well-being of the child as a priority. The idea of the New School is to maintain the domestic comfort of the home for the child - a more appropriate scale, a sense of protection and security - but also to serve a public role for the city - a space for events, school concerts, debates, and meetings for adults as well, a playground, and a sports area open to the community. By respecting both scales, the school becomes the School, where the physical boundaries of education can be overcome: understanding that the formation of the child into an adult begins outside of school - at home - and continues outside of school - on the street. Therefore, the city as a whole shapes and educates the child, and the (physical) school represents only the institutional part of education. Knowing this means being able to imagine and build the School for yesterday, today, and tomorrow: the continuous School, where education in all its forms, both formal and informal, can be interconnected homogeneously. The continuous School encourages positive social interactions within the school space through careful design by the architect. This phenomenon of encounters is ever-present in the schools presented in Roth's book - and experienced through the visits undertaken for this thesis - and continues in Portugal in the Escola do Cedro (Fernando Távora, 1961, Vila Nova de Gaia) and the Escola do Castelo (Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, 1972, Lisbon). The visits to the schools, as well as the study of creative processes, serve to explore my idea that the New School has architectural and human principles that are still valuable and relevant, 75 years after the book's publication.