The notion of limit in architectural theory. Two case studies in Portugal

Tiago Lopes Dias,Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos

doi:10.26754/ojs_zarch/zarch.2020144293

Abstract

Modern Portuguese architecture has been seen as the result of an eminently empirical and intuitive practice, dissociated from any effort of theoretical structuring. This paper intends to contradict that predominant view, presenting the notion of spatial limit as a subject that earned particular consideration from a younger, more critical and intellectually demanding generation of architects. Firstly, it introduces two notions directly related to limit - ‘extensions of the dwelling’ and ‘transition-space’ - presented in theses by Nuno Portas (b. 1934) and Pedro Vieira de Almeida (1933-2011) respectively, two highly innovative works in the academic panorama of early 1960s. Next, it focuses on the fundamental role each of the notions taken in investigative works that are parallel in time but substantially different. The first, Habitação evolutiva, is a typological study reflecting the spirit of its time by claiming the ‘right to the city’ as the founding principle of a model critical of CIAM urbanism. The second is an essay stemming from a critical reflexion on the work of an eclectic architect that eludes categorization (Raul Lino, 1879-1974) which sheds light on the need for a critical approach to the history of modern architecture.

Highlights

At CIAM IX in Aix-en-Provence, Alison and Peter Smithson approached the subject of urban design through four dimensions of human association: house, street, district and city
It introduces two notions directly related to limit - ‘extensions of the dwelling’ and ‘transition-space’ - presented in theses by Nuno Portas (b. 1934) and Pedro Vieira de Almeida (1933-2011) respectively, two highly innovative works in the academic panorama of early 1960s
Between the first two a fundamental question was raised: when man steps outside his dwelling, how does this contact between the individual and the collective take place? The term coined by the Smithsons, doorstep, became imprinted in Aldo van Eyck’s mind to a point where he reframed it and presented it as one of the main issues to be discussed by the participants of CIAM X.1

Summary

Introduction

At CIAM IX in Aix-en-Provence, Alison and Peter Smithson approached the subject of urban design through four dimensions of human association: house, street, district and city. The common thread of the argumentation evolves from the public exterior space to the private space of the house, closing with the return outside, in the author’s own words ‘the final issue facing a social notion of housing’.10 It was in this context that Nuno Portas developed the notion of ‘extension of the dwelling’. It is what justifies his interest in the ‘extensions of the dwelling’ developed in continuity with the surrounding urban fabric, where the limits of public and private, as well as those of class situation itself, are diluted This social view is present in the reconsideration of the vertical surface as one of the most important elements of housing, following the works of Le Corbusier and Georges Candilis.

25 This issue has already been evoked in

Conclusion