Abstract

This paper delves into the use of references in architecture. By being particularly open about this often controversial subject, lvaro Siza proposes fascinating and important materials for reflection. This paper parses two takes on his use of references as particularly posited by theorists William Curtis in 1994 and Peter Testa a decade before him. It expands on the seminal relevance of Siza’s first encounter with Alvar Aalto. It argues the implications of the event, both immediate and yonder, highlighting, through Siza’s own words, clues to underlying processes in his (re)collection of references as an instrument of work. It readdresses Siza’s use of references in light of the complexities of the phenomena at play. This paper portrays a fragment of an ongoing research into Álvaro Siza’s modus pensandi and modus faciendi.

Highlights

  • This paper delves into the use of references in architecture

  • With ‘Álvaro Siza: an architecture of edges’ of 1994, William Curtis addresses the use of references, confirmed or speculated, while contextualizing the matter and its implications for Siza’s particular architectural expression — fittingly accompanied by iconographic materials in pairs: Oud/Siza, Aalto/Siza, Wright/Siza, Siza/Siza, and Le Corbusier/Le Corbusier and Picasso/ Braque

  • Peter Testa’s thesis of 1984, “The Architecture of Alvaro Siza,” proposes a few pairings, with the benefit of the Portuguese architect’s own words garnered to an “account of a theoretical framework which could inform Siza’s practice.”[2]. While considerable time has elapsed since Curtis and Testa penned these essays, Siza’s use of and take on references remains so coherent that these and other similar inquiries are still relevant

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Summary

Introduction

This paper delves into the use of references in architecture. By being open about this often controversial subject, Álvaro Siza proposes fascinating and important materials for reflection.

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