Entre o Privado e o Público - Arquitectura Doméstica de Távora e Siza

Abstract

Man always had the need for a controlled space and dominated by himself that conformed the vital territory of his existence. If, on one hand, the city is the territory of the collective, on the other hand, the house comes into play as a place of human privacy and intimacy. The house has always been considered as the protector from the outside and what it contains, from nature to other men and the society in which they're inserted. The house is, therefore, the architectonic object projected and built to answer the needs and ways of life of those who inhabit it, allowing for structured spaces that can be empowered and appropriated by the owner, suitable to the conditions and context of the place where it is rooted. Man defines spaces with distinct characters, that relate to each other through the very limit that separates them, or unites them, defining the interior and exterior. Notions such as comfort and intimacy confer to the space a connotation of privacy, while notions of neighbourhood and collective endow it of its public strand. The main point of this investigation centres around the shape and place where this relation is established. Thus emerges the interest for the study of this dichotomous relation in the work of Portuguese authors, within the culture and way of doing of the Escola do Porto, Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza. The starting point is a theoretical field where one attempts to build a broad disciplinary basis to better understand the context and referrals of the authors. There will be a attempt to find links and correlations between 'the house of Távora'; and 'the house of Siza', while also attempting not to neglect possible differences and contradictions between both postures. The results of this study should establish relations, coincident or disparate, that inform the reader of the set network in the approach by Távora and Siza to the theme of limit between private and public, with the house as a starting point. To accomplish this task, two examples were chosen for each architect-author; one example of unifamiliar housing and one example of plurifamiliar housing. Other examples will come forward so that the above-referenced network of links and ruptures is as plausible and operative as possible. Thinking of the project-driven approach by Távora and Siza as it pertains to the house and its relation (and that of its occupant) to the city, presents itself as a 'desirable adventure'.