NUNO TEOTÓNIO PEREIRA, UNPRECEDENTED REALISM IN ARCHITECTURE AND IN LIFE

Abstract

The contemporariness of his work is evident proof of its timelessness. He was the activist of the Modern against the “national” style and aimed to attain truth in architecture while maintaining its roots. He believed in a third way, which allowed him a critical perspective on the dogma of Modern thought and led him to fight for bridging the gap with vernacular architecture and for the need to reconcile history and memory. His work is also that of a teacher because his office was a place of innovation and discussion outside academia. He was a pioneer of team work, always available to attempt new solutions. His “school” was based on research, on the openness to think outside the box, on his tolerance. Moreover, he was a brave citizen, known for his solidarity and contribution to society and for sharing his concerns with others.

Keywords: Nuno Teotónio Pereira, realism, architecture, social, activism.

I had the pleasure of knowing Nuno Teotónio Pereira, the architect who changed Portuguese architecture, for over thirty years. I also had the chance to know the generous, fair and frank man who fought for social causes. We built an intense, loyal and supportive friendship. In 2005, when Nuno invited me to speak at his Honorary Doctorate, I remember beginning my tribute speech saying that what I found most impressive, in his architecture and in his life, was his honesty and his endless search for truth. His architecture is based on concepts rather than shapes. He was methodical and demanding, as well as critical, original and controversial. His intellectual curiosity, and his need to intervene are evidence of someone who believes the world can be made better.

The contemporariness of Nuno Teotónio Pereira’s work is evident proof of its timelessness. He was the activist of the Modern against the “national” style and aimed to attain truth in architecture while maintaining its roots. He believed in a third way, which allowed him a critical perspective on the dogma of Modern thought and led him to fight for bridging the gap with vernacular architecture and for the need to reconcile history and memory. His work is also that of a teacher because his office was a place of innovation and discussion outside academia. He was a pioneer of team work, always available to attempt new solutions. His “school” was based on research, on the openness to think outside the box, on his tolerance. Moreover, he was a brave citizen, known for his solidarity and contribution to society and for sharing his concerns with others.

At the age of 25, Nuno Teotónio Pereira advocated the need to build without prejudice and with the purest of intentions. The concern should be building well, “preciso construir sem preconceitos e com pureza de intenções. Com uma espécie de inocência infantil. A preocupação terá que ser construir bem”. Throughout his work, he remained true to plan “with the purest of intentions”, connected to reality, to places and to people. His work evidenced his social to political commitment.

Nuno Teotónio Pereira, who became an architect in 1947, was well-known not only due to his work but, in particular, due to his role in Portuguese society. Not only is he a reference in Portuguese architecture but his office was a place of critical thinking and discussion, a school outside academia which, at the time, was old-fashioned and repressive. Several generations of some of the most important architects in Portugal worked there: Bartolomeu da Costa Cabral, Nuno Portas, Gonçalo Byrne, Pedro Vieira de Almeida, Pedro Viana Botelho. He was an active citizen who fought against injustice and the Estado Novo regime (the regime of the dictatorship in 20thc Portugal) and was arrested several times by the political police, PIDE-DGS. He participated in the vigils at S. Domingos church, and at Rato Chapel, he founded the Catholic renewal movement, Movimento de Renovação da Arte Religiosa (1952-1971), to which he presided, the cooperative, Cooperativa Cultural PRAGMA, the Centro Nacional de Cultura, the Portuguese Architect Association and the Architects Council of Europe.

As a student, he bravely fought for Modernism and had an active role in the dissemination of reference literature and published excerpts from Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse and from the Athens Charter. At the same time, Nuno Teotónio Pereira believed in a third way, which allowed him to keep a critical perspective on the Modernist dogma and attempt the link with vernacular architecture. Another example is the fact that he promoted the publication of Fernando Távora’s text, “O problema da casa portuguesa” (the issue with the Portuguese house).

As he resisted simply accepting the dogmas of the Modernist movement, Nuno Teotónio Pereira sought inspiration in Portuguese culture to humanize architecture. Therefore, in the late 1940s he was pioneer in raising awareness to the need to reconcile history, tradition and future, modernity and history, space and time.

Two facts will be relevant at the start of his career. On the one hand, having worked with Carlos Ramos and having attended Porto University, thus escaping Lisbon academia. On the other hand, his work in a technical environment, the office of engineer Vasco Costa, which would influence his way of thinking, release him from formal restraints and open his imagination to a more construction- oriented perspective. This environment of technical thinking would test his functional skills in understanding structures and their relations with shape. This enabled him to choose and use materials without prejudice. Unlike the “modernists” of his generation.

He sided with the social concerns of the Modernist Movement, which he blended with his Catholic beliefs. As such, housing became his chosen research theme and, in 1944, he creatd a housing cooperative as a school project, a concept in which he blended nineteenth-century philanthropy and Modernist ideals. The issue of housing was part of the Modernist agenda, a relevant theme for post-war Portuguese architects, who affirmed their concern in the 1948 Conference, in which Nuno Teotónio Pereira presented, with Costa Martins, an idea that evidenced his full understanding of the issue of social exclusion and proposed solutions at city and national levels.

In the Olivais-Norte project (1959), with its set of powers and bands, he proposes an innovative space organization and the participation of artists in a social housing scheme. He was awarded the Valmor Prize again (1968) and, for the first time, this prize was given to a social project. In 1965, with Braula Reis, he designs the controversial project Braamcamp (“Franjinhas” -”Bangs”), a building for shops and services in which he resumed the concept of integrating public space in a housing structure. For the very first time, architecture is brought to public discussion, in a passionate debate involving professionals, critics and the general public. In the 1970s, the plan for Alto do Restelo evidenced the rediscovery of the importance of the street and the square in the traditional city. The architect resumed the concept of the façade and especially the formal value of the block as a core element in architecture; he reinstated the relevance of the orthogonal course as diversified typology and redesigned the blocks at a place where 1960s modern towers and blocks had a strong impact. In the 1980s, he planned the bank CGD at Horta (Azores), opting for a design that contextualized the building in its surroundings. He was responsible for refurbishing and enlarging Taborda Theatre, whose contemporary construction he kept. This project is again co- authored with Bartolomeu Costa Cabral (1979-1989).

Large-scale intervention would be resumed in the late 1990s, led by Pedro Viana Botelho in a study on transportation complex, “Intermodal do Cais do Sodré”, in which he blended, in a very unique way, the train, subway, boat and bus networks. The concerns with citizenship and public space enhancement Nuno Teotónio Pereira’s office was known for are reaffirmed here. Working in the heart of the city, in the riverfront, the importance of enhancing the value of public space and of urban types in the traditional city were again under the spotlight.

Covilhã Polis Project, a state project on urban planning, is perhaps the major urban intervention of Nuno Teotónio Pereira’s office. So as to preserve and upgrade the creeks, Nuno Teotónio Pereira added pedestrian access. He started by focusing on the valleys between the two creeks, in whose banks were two textile plants that are now part of the city’s industrial heritage.