Female architects in Portugal: building visibility, 1942-1986

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Publications

Teresa Almendra’s House of Oz and the expansion of the modern

Publication . Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos; Antunes, Lia

In the 1980s, in Ubatuba, on the shore of the state of São Paulo (Brazil), the architect Teresa Assoreira Almendra (1943, Angola) built what is believed to be her most accomplished work: the House of Oz. With a personal and professional path developed mainly in Angola and Portugal, the architect and interior decorator achieved, in this work, an intense dialogue between space, materiality and nature. Designed and built after Almendra left Angola, it allowed the architect to re-encounter a tropical context that was natural to her. Therefore, both as an architectural proposal and in a biographical sense, this work can be read as a personal synthesis of her African and European experiences, reinvented in Brazil. The goal of this proposal is to assess the particular condition of producing houses in their context. Methodologically, the work gathers relevant historical and architectural material-including drawings, texts, interviews-setting them in opposition and dialogue, in a critical perspective. Built in 1984, the House of Oz, which overlooks the beach, was commissioned by a Portuguese couple, who gave the architect complete freedom. Called Oz because of the importance given to its paths, these constitute an anchor between everyday life and the surrounding natural territory. For Teresa Almendra, the poetics of the place was underlined by the tracing of these crossings, where paths, passageways, galleries and bridges underpin domestic holiday life, forging a generous relationship with the enveloping forest and beach. In the House of Oz, architecture and decoration form a single entity, shaping family activities. Alongside the understanding and contextualization of the house, there is the perplexity of seeing a house with such architectural value be neglected within the historiography of Portuguese architecture: by mapping presences, we identify the glaring void of absences.

2022Book part

Open access

Entrevista ao projeto Mulheres em Construção

Publication . Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos; Fávero, Natália

Neste número especial da revista CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios, dedicado ao tema “Feminismos e a Espacialização das Resistências”, considerou-se pertinente entrevistar a equipa do projeto Mulheres em Construção (MemC) enquanto exemplo de prática feminista e emancipadora feito a partir do direito aos espaços qualificados . Mulheres em Construção é promovido pela associação Mulheres na Arquitectura (MA) e desenvolve-se no âmbito do programa português Bairros Saudáveis (BS). O projeto consiste na capacitação de mulheres em vulnerabilidade socio-laboral, residentes no Bairro de Santiago, em Aveiro, e na formação em construção civil. O projeto teve a duração de doze meses. A equipa do Mulheres em Construção é composta por cinco arquitetas e arquitetas urbanistas: as coordenadoras Gabriela Cavalcanti (1994, Brasília, Brasil) e Patrícia Robalo (1982, Lisboa, Portugal), e as voluntárias Elena Parnasi (1992, Milão, Itália), Isabella Rusconi (1972, Santos, Brasil) e Lia Gil Antunes (1988, Covilhã, Portugal).

2022Journal article

Open access

Feminisms and the spacialization of resistances: keeping the fight alive

Publication . Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos; Santos, Eliana Sousa; Alvarez Lombardero, Nuria; Arias Laurino, Daniela

Since the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, an interest about studies in feminism and architecture was recaptured by some scholars in the Anglo-Saxon context influencing new generations to come. This reviving of women’s studies in architecture had a more difficult path in other latitudes that lacked academic references in different languages, but it would soon blow up starting from the Mediterranean region. In 2014, the first international congress was organized in Seville, Spain, by scholar Nuria Alvarez Lombardero, around architectural practice. This initiative called Arquitectas: redefining the practice started with a small support from the University of Seville, Spain. Still, it courageously caught the attention of different researchers worldwide with similar concerns. The call for papers was answered by more than fifty proposals of all kinds that voiced a need to expose a resistance to obscurantism concerning the subject. Fourteen articles were selected and structured following the major themes: places of exclusion, rewriting the history of architecture, worldwide practices, and new forms of practice. Supporting these reflections, five women architects were invited as guest speakers to share their positions and experiences around the subject of practice, allowing a deeper conversation transcripted in the book Arquitectas: redefiniendo la práctica presented at the XIII Spanish Bienal of Architecture and Urbanism (Alvarez Lombardero, N. 2015). Gratifyingly, the congress became the inception of an extensive network of researchers and scholars that still operates today with more than 1,000 people connected worldwide.

2022Journal article

Open access

V Congresso International Arquitectura e Género: Acção! Feminismos e a espacialização das resistências - Livro de resumos

Publication . Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos; Oliveira, Carla; Souto, Maria Helena; Antunes, Lia; Santos, Eliana Sousa; Paiva, Luísa; Sequeira, João

O V Congresso Internacional Arquitectura e Género | ACÇÃO. Feminismos e a espacialização das resistências dá continuidade às reflexões que se organizaram desde 2015, principalmente a partir do sul da Europa, permitindo a construção de redes de trabalho, investigação e experiências transcontinentais. Nesta genealogia, com programas e temáticas variados, contam-se os congressos ArquitectAs (2014, Sevilha), Matrizes (2015, Lisboa), MORE (2017, Florença), e Fielding Architecture (2019, Brighton). A quinta edição propõe enfatizar a componente política do cruzamento do espaço com os direitos, nunca esquecendo a diversidade do ser-se mulher ou rapariga e o cruzamento com as actuais circunstâncias derivadas da pandemia da COVID-19. Em 1995, a Declaração e a Plataforma de Acção de Pequim foi aprovada na IV Conferência Mundial sobre as Mulheres, momento essencial na fixação de uma agenda política, estratégica e global relativa aos direitos e oportunidades das mulheres. Hoje, vinte e cinco anos passados, assistimos à coexistência de práticas e políticas públicas progressistas em paralelo com perdas graves e silenciamentos. Reflectir, debater e propor, crítica e colectivamente, teorias, estratégias e práticas torna-se urgente. De modo ampliado e interdisciplinar, reclamamos o foco para as resistências, tendo como âncora os feminismos interseccionais – necessariamente pós-coloniais e decoloniais –, os direitos, as reivindicações, os desejos e as aspirações das mulheres e dos sujeitos não-normativos. Em todo o mundo, nos diversos âmbitos socioculturais e profissionais, organizam-se colectivamente várias frentes de lutas contra o patriarcado, o racismo e o capitalismo. A compreensão e acção das vertentes espaciais – dos corpos aos territórios globais, nos contextos locais e transnacionais – são fulcrais como resposta às discriminações, marginalizações e ausência de direitos. A partir das dinâmicas de resistências na produção e apropriação dos territórios, das cidades, das arquitecturas e dos objectos, procuram-se especialmente contribuições que se coloquem como acções propositivas na espacialização dos direitos. No contexto da recente pandemia da COVID-19, será igualmente dada ênfase a reflexões críticas e situadas sobre, por um lado, a afectação e alteração das vidas das mulheres nas esferas do privado e do público e, por outro lado, quais as possibilidades para os territórios que habitamos.

2019Book

Open access

Architect Luz Valente-Pereira: Architecture, Research, and Life in a Changing Country

Publication . Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos; Antunes, Lia Gil

Luz Valente-Pereira (b. 1934, Lisbon) is a key figure of the 20th century Portuguese History of Architecture, albeit a forgotten one. This research is a starting point for establishing a more solid biography of this pioneer who initiated the first decades of female participation in the architectural field in Portugal. After some professional experience in different contexts, she developed a stable research career at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) with studies on various spatial scales. We have used different methodologies: bibliographical review, consultation of national archives, and an interview with her. Our proposal is not only to create female references but also to broaden the historical readings on women’s participation in Portugal throughout the 20th century.

2020Journal article

Open access