Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Research Articles

The first national survey on cultural participation in Portugal: exploring social and professional backgrounds

ABSTRACT Portugal undertook the first national survey of cultural practices (2020) with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The present paper describes the contemporary cultural eclecticism in keeping with the analysis of key indicators for the cultural consumption of cinema, live performances, theatre, dance, circus, festivals, and local events. In line with previous European Survey conclusions, the first Portuguese National Survey results demonstrate how the younger and better educated, alongside those raised by educated parents, display “cultural omnivorism”. The main findings converge around how the influence of social backgrounds, positions in the professional structure and class identities, are shaping cultural consumption as pointed out by Reeves in his cross-national European study.

Մխիթարեան միաբանութեան Վիեննայի մենաստանի պարբերականների թվայնացման նախագծի առաջին փուլի արդյունքների ներկայացում

In 2019 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in close cooperation with Mekitarist Congregation – Vienna and Fundamental Scietific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia initiated a project – to digitize Armenian periodical and newspaper collections being prereved in the Mekitarist Congregation – Vienna library. The library website https://mechitaristlibrary.org/ presents the periodical and newspaper collections published between 1794 and 1920 from the Vienna Mekhitarist Library. All digitized materials are stored in the databases of the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, and are freely accessible to all. The digitization of materials is continuous, and content will be made available in the corresponding databases and websites when ready. The project also pursues other goals: openness to the international scientific world, access to knowledge for all Armenians and the international scientific and academic community, strengthening of the Armenian language, promotion and development of research work, as well as the promotion of collaboration between inter-Armenian and various Armenian and international organizations.

Fellowship in surgical oncology: The results of an experience in Portuguese-speaking African countries

Cancer incidence rates are increasing worldwide including in Portuguese speaking African countries. We present the results of the fellowship in surgical oncology promoted by the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Porto (IPO), Fernando Pessoa University, Portugal, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which involved the training of residents and surgeons from Portuguese-speaking African countries in Portugal. The program's structure and content was the same of UMES/ESSO. The hands-on activity took place at the IPO. After the fellowship, a theoretical and practical assessment was held, and all fellows scored above the threshold to pass. The surgical performance of the fellows was assessed in their workplaces in Africa. The impact of the training was evaluated by a questionnaire completed by all the fellows. It was reported an increase in knowledge, skills and organizational skills that fellows are committed to implement. As the fellowship is certified by a Portuguese University, it may be recognized by the Local Health and University Authorities, impacting on the professional progression of fellows.

Constança Capdeville and the ColecViva Group: Alejandro Erlich Oliva in Interview with Filipa Magalhães

ABSTRACT This article explores the ColecViva activities from the perspective of founding member and double bass player Alejandro Erlich Oliva (b. 1948). The group was founded by the composer Constança Capdeville in 1985 with the aim of performing her music and theatre works and as a pioneering project in Portugal. Interviewed by Filipa Magalhães on two occasions (in 2018 and 2023), Erlich Oliva details the first steps of the group’s actions, discusses the ongoing collaborative work among members of ColecViva, and addresses the ‘pedagogy of deconditioning’ concept that he forged. In the 1980s, Capdeville guided stimulating study programs at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in which Erlich Oliva, as a lecturer, defined the contents within the scope of non-conventional procedures for obtaining sound from the double bass. Capdeville dedicated the music theatre work Amen para uma ausência (1986) for a solo double bass to him. At the composer’s request and in close collaboration with her, Erlich Oliva created the graphic score with specific writing notes for the double bass. This last interview attempts to shed light on his perceptions as a performer.

O Além da Retórica em Vanitas, 51 avenue d’Iéna de Almeida Faria

O conto Vanitas, 51 avenue d’Iéna, publicado em 2007 pela Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, inspirou a Paula Rego o magistral tríptico “Vanitas”. Almeida Faria, reproduzindo a voz de Edgar Poe, que empresta ao pintor Mário Botas, proporciona-nos um encontro com o fantasma do opulento colecionador, cujas memórias estéticas preenchem a conversação entre os dois interlocutores. Tratar-se-á de um jogo retórico denunciando a ilusão ligada a qualquer composição literária, a começar pelo próprio texto, ou, ao invés, de uma profissão de fé na eternidade das obras de arte, mesmo as literárias? Esta relação entre a literatura e a pintura é uma das chaves da obra de Almeida Faria, mas permanece sempre tensa e ambígua, marcada por uma certa subordinação – irónica? – da primeira face à segunda. É que a literatura, arte das palavras, não pode, na sua necessária discursividade, rivalizar com a instantaneidade intuitiva da fruição estética que os quadros oferecem. Mas não permanece o escritor definitivamente mestre do jogo?

"Urbanistic Architecture" According to Raul Lino

Over a period of nearly one hundred years, Raul Lino (1879-1974) experienced the profound political, social and economic changes that marked the twentieth century in Portugal. Having been born during the Constitutional Monarchy (1822-1910), he lived through the First Republic (1910-1926), the Military Dictatorship (1926-1933), the Second Republic, or Estado Novo (New State, 1933-1974), and died shortly after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, at the dawning of the Third Republic. He was an architect who published prolifically in Portugal, having become known through his advocacy of the Campanha da casa Portuguesa (Portuguese House Campaign), which provoked a great deal of controversy. The debate peaked with the Polémica da casa Portuguesa (Polemic of the Portuguese house) at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1970, after the inauguration of the retrospective exhibition on Raul Lino. He is less known for the quality of his transversal synthesis conceived between urbanism, architecture, the decorative arts, and its underlying affirmation of an idea of the city, which we conjecture from our analysis of his narrative. This analysis concentrates on eleven case studies that encompasses architectural projects, urbanistic plans and technical advice limited to the first half of the 20th century. The broad, cross-disciplinary position of Lino was defended in the same year as the First National Architecture Congress (1948), whose proposals ratified in Portugal the orthodoxy principles of modern architecture and urban planning for the new universal man-type, established in 1933 by the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Quoting Aristotle, Raul Lino conceived the city as the locus of happiness, shaping forms of consensus between tradition and modernity by means of an architecture at the scale of man and in proportion to his circumstance, consistently outlining a modern possibility of continuity.

Arquétipo: a utopia como horizonte

Entrevista ao administrador executivo da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins.

Uma ‘ferramenta do comum’ para uma ‘curadoria da falta’. Acarte 1984-1989


 
 
 A timeline digital acarte 1984-1989 é um interface digital onde é possível ter aceso à actividade do Serviço acarte da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian entre 1984 e 1989, tendo sido desenhada e construída no contexto da investigação de Doutoramento no aleph, para um olhar sobre o Serviço acarte da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian entre 1984 e 1989 (Menção Honrosa Prémio Mário Soares 2016). Esta investigação, dupla, composta pelo referido interface digital e pela tese propriamente dita, incide sobre o papel performativo dos Museus de Arte Moderna, centrando-se nas transformações culturais por que Portugal passa após a entrada na União Europeia ”“ e o modo como estas encontram no corpo um terreno particular de expressão.
 Neste artigo apresenta-se sucintamente este interface que se defende ser uma ‘ferramenta do comum’ por, ao abrir o arquivo deste Serviço a estudos futuros, possibilitar um olhar sobre as referidas transformações culturais vistas a partir do lugar privilegiado que é o do primeiro museu de arte moderna num país onde modernidade e pós modernidade se entrechocam. Defende- se igualmente a noção de ‘Curadoria da Falta’ para caracterizar a acção de Madalena Perdigão enquanto Directora deste Serviço, propondo eventualmente um olhar sobre as Instituições a partir de um ponto de vista não do público nem do privado, mas do comum.
 
 

Corpus e géneros textuais nas práticas de divulgação de ciência ou as novas hierarquias na construção do conhecimento

This paper, as result from the research project Scientific Literacy Promotion, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, shows, in a first moment, the heterogeneity of the textual formats that participate in the dissemination of science, widespread by the media in Portugal, starting from the analysis of the relations between corpus, genres and texts. In a second moment, the textual support, in particular the evolution from print to digital, led to a discussion of the linguistic and textual implications of this development, as well as the implications of the new hierarchies of knowledge construction

Philanthropy, diplomacy and built environment expertise at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the 1960s and 1970s

When the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was established in Portugal in 1956, its endowments were channelled to support priority charitable, educational, scientific and arts-related initiatives, both in the country and abroad. To this end, the trust erected a political, diplomatic, technical and administrative machine that, in the second half of the twentieth century, was uncommon there; its Projects and Works Department, SPO (1957–1992), became a built environment production bureaucracy staffed by architects and civil engineers with solid design and technology cultures, working in a finely tuned, relatively well-resourced apparatus. This paper investigates the role of the Gulbenkian Foundation and the SPO in nurturing architectural and engineering research and furthering building science expertise by analysing the aims, structure, work processes, knowledge references, opportunities and reversals of this bureaucracy. I suggest that the SPO, given a mandate for professional excellence, played an essential part in the establishment and consolidation of the Foundation, in Portugal and internationally, with what aimed to be a prompt, efficient, architecturally and technically sophisticated brick-and-mortar presence that would simultaneously help assert and preserve its independence, both ideological and material. The latter was certainly paramount, and the SPO’s architectural-technical expertise was put to full use within the Foundation’s soft-power diplomacy strategy in Iraq, where this department’s action was instrumental in maintaining access to the philanthropy’s oil-concession resources.

WATER SUPPLY AND ACCESS TO SAFE WATER IN DEVELOPING ARID COUNTRIES

Nemias Moniz Goncalves avails to acknowledge Gulbenkian Scholarship Service from FCG (CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN FOUNDATION), for the granted individual scholarship, under the program of Postgraduate Scholarships for students of PALOP and East Timor - Stimulating research and professional appreciation, process No. 139758. The FCG has been an indispensable support in carrying out all academic activities. This work was also supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, based on COMPETE 2020 (Programa Operacional da Competitividade e Internacionalizacao) - project ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2013) with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690

Review: The Form of Form: Lisbon Architecture Triennale

The Form of Form: Lisbon Architecture Triennale Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology; and Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon 5 October–11 December 2016 The fourth Lisbon Architecture Triennale, titled The Form of Form , consisted of three primary exhibitions and seven smaller satellite events and exhibitions located throughout the city that explored the concept of form. Curators Andre Tavares and Diogo Seixas Lopes skillfully illustrated that form is a complex concept that encourages important discussions about authorship, representation, and the political, social, and economic aspects of architectural design. The most captivating exhibition of the Triennale was Building Site , which addressed the relationship between buildings and process. The exhibition, curated by Andre Tavares and held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, comprised seven sections, each concentrating on a different architect and theme: “Happiness,” illustrated by Cedric Price's McAppy Report (1973–75); “Lightness,” focusing on the promotion of self-help building sites by the architectural collective Usina; “System,” featuring Francois Hennebique's reinforced concrete building system (1890–1914); “Time,” highlighting OMA's Casa da Musica; “Material,” illustrated by SKREI's surveys of raw materials in Portugal; “Communication,” showing David Chipperfield Architects’ Neues Museum; and “Choreographies,” presenting Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Hugo Palmorola's selections of excerpts from Soviet cartoons and films (1921–80). Most engaging of the contemporary material in this exhibition was SKREI's installation. The group created a catalogue of Portuguese soils, beautifully displayed as if pigments in jars, along with early materials tests, bricks, and models. A full-scale brick vault over centering completed a …

HDSS Profile: The Dande Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Dande HDSS, Angola).

The core funding of all CISA activities has been provided by Camoes - Portuguese Institute for Cooperation and Language, by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and by the Angolan Ministry of Health.

THE CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN MUSEUM IN LISBON

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is located off the tourist paths, on the outskirts of Europe, and far away from the centre of Lisbon, in the serenity of the Santa Gertrudes Park. Its austere concrete buildings hide treasures from the collection of an extraordinary man, a millionaire of Armenian origin, an oil magnate, and an art and garden lover. The article presents the collector, the history of his collection and the museum buildings which now form an original park and museum complex run by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2010, the complex was entered into the register of national monuments of Portugal, thus being the first masterpiece of the 20th-century architecture to feature in this register.

Maternal CASPR2 antibodies and neurodevelopmental disorders in the offspring: epidemiological findings and an animal model

BackgroundCNS disorders can be caused by IgG antibodies to neuronal surface proteins, and these antibodies have the potential to cross the placenta. Since some of them target proteins involved in neurodevelopment, such as contactin-associated protein-2 (CASPR2), we hypothesised that they could alter developing neuronal circuits in utero and lead to neurodevelopmental disorders in the children. MethodsA dual approach to the study was undertaken. First, we studied pregnancy serum samples from two population-based Danish cohorts: a cohort of women with postpartum psychosis and a cohort of mothers of children with mental retardation and other disorders of psychological development (MR–DPD), each with individually matched controls. We screened them for the presence of antibodies to CASPR2. Then, we assessed the effects of in-utero exposure to the antibodies in a mouse maternal-to-fetal model. FindingsThe combined results from these two cohorts showed that maternal antibodies to CASPR2 were associated with an increased risk of MR–DPD in the children: eight (4·4%) of 182 mothers of MR–DPD children had CASPR2 antibodies compared with only three (0·9%) of 347 mothers of children without this diagnosis (p=0·01). This association was explored by injection of mouse dams with IgG purified from CASPR2-antibody-positive patients, or from healthy controls. The mouse offspring had long-term behavioural sequelae, manifested as deficits in social interaction and social activities, and increased repetitive, non-social behaviours. When they were culled at 12 months, their brains showed abnormal migration of cortical projection neurons, increased microglial activation, and reduction in the number of glutamatergic synapses, confirming that there had been long-term changes in neurodevelopment. InterpretationCASPR2 was identified as a specific target for maternal antibodies that can alter brain development in utero, resulting in long-term behavioural deficits and permanent abnormalities at the cellular and synaptic level. These results should encourage further epidemiological and experimental studies to confirm and explore further how CASPR2 and other maternal antibodies can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders in children. FundingEC was funded by the Programme for Advanced Medical Education at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. This work was also supported by the Stanley Medical Research Institute. Resources were provided by the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.

Luiz Francisco Rebello e a censura: diálogos com a História

Denouncing and exposing censorship procedures has been one of Luiz Francisco Rebello’s (1924-2011) most visible lines of action, whether in his public interventions, his theatrical practice, his playwriting or in his theatre historiography. In this essay, we remember and discuss some key moments of Rebello’s resistance to censorship: his intervention as keynote speaker in the International Federation for Theatre Research (Lisbon, 2009); his controversial direction of the Companhia do Teatro Municipal, performing in the municipal venue Teatro São Luiz (1971); his participation in the organization of a conference cycle on German documentary-theatre (1972); and in the 2nd Republican Congress, where he discussed the situation of theatre in Portugal (Aveiro, 1969). We also look back on his play, Portugal, anos 40, directed by Carlos Avilez (at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1982). LUIZ FRANCISCO REBELLO / CENSORSHIP / ARTISTIC RESISTANCE / PORTUGUESE THEATRE / HISTORY

Health Literacy of a Sample of Portuguese Elderly

AbstractThis article presents the results of a study developed within the scope of the Project Health Literacy: a challenge in and for the elderly, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It tried to evaluate the metric qualities of the Newest Vital Sign Test (NVS, Copyright © Pfizer Inc.) applied to elderly; evaluate the degree of health literacy of a sample of elderly Portuguese people; get to know the association between the degree of health literacy and some sociodemographic features, the general health state, and quality of life. It was conducted a quantitative study with 433 adults over 65 years of age, mostly female, and with heterogeneous levels of education. The instrument used was a battery of tests in order to assess the degree of health literacy (Newest Vital Sign), and the quality of life (WHOQOL). The NVS proved to be a reliable and sensitive to changes due to various demographic characteristics instrument. The results indicate that the majority of the participants (80%) showed a level of low health literacy, meaning that only 20% of respondents will be able to interpret and use effectively information related with health. Gender, educational attainment, age and marital status, as well as the perception of the elderly on their general health state and quality of life, proved to be variables that affect significantly the level of health literacy of participants. These results point to the urgent need to enhance health literacy in the elderly population, in general, and among the most vulnerable groups, in particular.

O Pós-Colonialismo e as Instituições Culturais Portuguesas: O Caso do Programa Gulbenkian Próximo Futuro e do Projeto Africa.Cont

This essay aims to analyse how the post-colonial paradigm has been incorporated in some cultural institutions (museums and art centres) in Portugal. Since it is a paradigm that has been widely discussed in various disciplinary areas, we will seek to analyze how some Portuguese institutions have positioned themselves (deliberately or not) towards the main ideas that inform the postcolonial paradigm and how these ideas are manifested in the practices of these institutions. Two projects will be analyzed in detail: the Next Future Program of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Africa.cont Cultural Center project. These two projects were chosen because they are considered to be the projects that have more directly addressed the postcolonial theme in Portugal and its key issues. The essay begins with a brief exposition on the theme in question, seeking to present how the debate on postcolonialism is conceived and has marked presence in the international sphere. At the same time, it seeks to reflect on how this debate has been received in Portugal, both in the academic sphere and in terms of cultural institutions. Next, two case studies are presented: the Gulbenkian Proximo Futuro programme and the Africa.cont project, in order to reflect on the existence of a post-colonial agenda in these programmes.

Brutalism and Nature. The Gulbenkian Foundation Buildings (1959-1969)

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation headquarters and museum complex (1959–1969) headed a fundamental role in building science in Portugal, as it contributed to the accomplishment of a Modern Movement design committed with a high level of construction quality, showing that there was more beyond Modern Movement formalism. Inaugurated in 1969, it was designed to create a pleasant environment, providing prospects from inside at various angles to the grove of trees and the surrounding land. As a mega-structure designed under a multi-disciplinary design and construction team it achieved a high level of technical excellence and comfort, whilst beautifully linking the building and garden. Located in central Lisbon, within a park with an area of 7.5 ha, occupying an area of 25.000 m2, it was designed by the architects Alberto Pessoa (1919–1985), Pedro Cid (1925–1983) and Ruy Jevis d’Athouguia (1917–2006) with the collaboration of the landscape designers Ribeiro Barreto (1924–2013) and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (1922–). The construction gathered an international interdisciplinary team of specialists. The most up-to-date techniques were adopted, including reinforced and pre-stressed concrete in its construction. Some figures illustrate the volume of these buildings: 150,000 m3 of excavation, 45,000 m3 of concrete, 3,200 t of steel, 100 km of power cables, 50,000 m of air conditioning pipes and 3,500 kW of installed electrical capacity. The architectural design expresses the structure. The aim of having a dominant horizontal line that guaranteed the image of a low building hugging the land and the wish to emphasize the long slabs of concrete that constituted the visible image of the built complex called for a very creative structural concept. The impact that the complex has had and the way in which it has manifested the effectiveness of its qualities, such as formal sobriety and restraint, have confirmed the close relationship between the conception process and the construction site. With its garden it has created the very image of the prestige and innovation of the Foundation itself.

José Augusto França interviewed by Ana Tostões

On April 2016, Ana Tostões interviewed Professor José-Augusto França, the Portuguese modern art researcher of reference on the contemporary era, in order to discuss the key modern structure that made the shift towards a Modern Lisbon. José-Augusto França (b. 1922, Tomar) is historian, sociologist and critic of art. He has a graduation in Historical and Philosophical Sciences (1944, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon), a PhD in History (1962, Paris-Sorbonne University, Une Ville des Lumères: la Lisbonne de Pombal), a diploma on Sociology of the Art (1963, L'Art et la Société Portugaise au XXè siècle) and a PhD in Letters (1969, Paris-Sorbonne University, Le Romantisme au Portugal). He is professor emeritus of the Nova University of Lisbon, where he created the first Art History masters of the country (1976). He was Director of the Portuguese Cultural Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris (1983), President of the National Academy of Fine Arts (1985) and member of the UNESCO Comité du Patrimoine Mondial. He is a reference author in the field of visual and cultural arts in Portugal, being the first one identifying and presenting modern architecture in Portugal in his Arte em Portugal no Século XX (1974). Among his works stand out studies on art in Portugal in the 19th and 20th centuries, as several volumes of essays on historical, sociological and aesthetic reflection on contemporary art issues. He has received the Medal of Honor of the City of Lisbon (1992), the Grand Officer (1991) and the Grand Cross (2006) of the Infante D. Henrique Order and the Grand Cross of the Order of Public Instruction (1992).