NEW PUBLICATION
PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK “THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ALGARVE” IN LISBON AND FARO
On 23 May in Lisbon, and 3 June in Faro, Dafne Editora presents the book The Construction of the Algarve, a publication by CIAC researcher Ricardo Costa Agarez. The Construction of the Algarve is an investigation of the of architecture influence in the transformation of the Algarve region, between 1920 and 1960.
The book will be presented to the public by the author. The presentation will be followed by a debate with Teresa Valente, architect of the City Council of Faro, in Auditorium 3 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation on 23 May at 18h15. In Faro, the presentation takes place on 3 June, at 19h30 at Jardim da Alameda / Patio Da Biblioteca.
The Algarve is not only the main touristic region of Portugal. Exceptionally Mediterranean in an Atlantic country, its construction practices were for a long time markers of historical and cultural specificities, able to simultaneously attract conservative architects who admired the picturesque or modernists in search of their lineage. Modernism, regionalism, and the ‘vernacular’ were three essential ideas of the twentieth century’s architectural culture that converged in the construction of the region’s identity. In this book, these ideas that have often been the object of strictly metropolitan studies are analyzed by integrating local perspectives.
Challenging the conventional inclusion of Portuguese modern architecture in the narratives of ‘Critical Regionalism’, the book is a detailed reconstruction of the debates and cultures at play and presents antecedents that characterized the much-celebrated turning point to the region. Lesser-known architects and a cast of other agents (clients, Administration, engineers, and builders) contributed to maturing a regional line of modern architecture that, more than being the heroic result of a hard ‘battle’ carried out by architects committed to combating a conservative regime, was truly popular in the Algarve.
Ricardo Costa Agarez is an architect and historian of architecture and cities. He is currently a researcher at CIAC and a main investigator at ISCTE — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. Among others, he is the author of books A Habitação Apoiada em Portugal (Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, 2020) and Algarve Building (Routledge, 2016), and editor of collective works such as Architecture Thinking Across Boundaries (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Habitação: Cem Anos de Políticas Públicas em Portugal 1918 – 2018 (IHRU, 2018).
The construction of the Algarve has the support of CIAC, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the City Council of Faro, the Interdisciplinary Center for History, cultures, and Societies of the University of Évora, the Center for Studies on socio-economic change and Territory DINÂMIA’CET/ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, and the Center for Studies in archaeology, Arts and Heritage Sciences, as well as the Algarve Regional section of the Order of Architects.
