Fourth anniversary programme

To celebrate the fourth anniversary at the new premises, Casa da Arquitectura—Portuguese Centre for Architecture offered this month an extraordinary weekend with open doors and a free programme consisting of 36 events, including guided and inclusive visits to the exhibitions and to the Archive, debates and presentations, installations and artistic performances for all audiences.

The activities occupied the Casa da Arquitectura Quarter, in Matosinhos, orbiting the two exhibitions currently on display: Radar Veneza—Portuguese Architects at the Biennale 1975-2021, a balance of the Portuguese participation in Venice; and What? When? Why not? Portuguese Architecture, a critical reflection on Portuguese architecture.

To highlight such an important occasion, Casa da Arquitectura awarded the title of honorary associate partner to two notable figures of contemporary architecture of great relevance to Portugal, Álvaro Siza and Francesco Dal Co, following the first honorary partner of Casa da Arquitectura, the Brazilian Paulo Mendes da Rocha, in September 2018.

One of the high points of the Anniversary brought together three honorary members of Casa da Arquitectura, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Álvaro Siza and Francesco Dal Co, in a conversation that gathered a large interest by the public.

In the last four years, Casa has grown in importance and significance, assuming itself as an institution of intense programmatic action, predominantly inspired by its Archive, which has been receiving a growing number of Portuguese-Brazilian collections.

The main work of Eduardo Souto de Moura, Lucio Costa, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, João Luís Carrilho da Graça, Pedro Ramalho, Gonçalo Byrne, among others, is in the Casa's Archive. In addition to individual collections and assets, Casa has made a strong commitment to territorial collections such as the “Brazilian Architecture Collection” or the “Portuguese Architecture Collection—50 Years of Democracy.”

The fourth anniversary marks a new stage in the life of Casa da Arquitectura. In 2022, Casa will present the Digital Building, a set of platforms designed to promote universal access to the Archive's heritage through the scanning and availability of all the documents stored there, as well as all the exhibitions, debates, conferences it promoted. It's a new way for Casa to present itself to the world and reach new audiences.

It is also the first step in a policy to encourage academic research in conjunction with the Portuguese Government, which will allow simple and economic access to the materials that constitute the collections through grants that promote the continual study of the work of architects kept and preserved in the Casa’s Archive. Casa is also promoting an editorial policy that includes the publication of works resulting from the investigation of the collections.

Preparing the future, Casa is currently organizing large exhibitions from the collections under its care—the monographic displays on João Luís Carrilho da Graça in the beginning of 2022, on Paulo Mendes da Rocha and on Lucio Costa—and the Portuguese architecture overview on the 50 years of democracy that the country celebrates in 2024.