Fernando Távora: The Journey as an Instrument of Experience and Transmission of the Architectural Discipline

For the architect Fernando Távora, master of the “Porto School”, the journey represented part of a methodological progression within his own cultural growth. The journeys themselves were numerous: several trips to Spain, Italy, a trip around Europe in 1949, travelling on the occasion of the CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture). His years of training culminated in a trip around the world in 1960, thanks to a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, which allowed him a four-moth trip to the USA, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and, finally, Greece. The journey was the medium through which he would mentally and physically build a living relationship, direct, intelligent, without filters of interpretation, with the non-specialist “knowledge” of places and people. He considered the basic principle of “first live, then design” as fundamental to the discipline of a project. During this trip he would write daily, noting the chronology of the events and producing numerous drawings of all the places visited. His journey would come to an end in Athens where finally he reflected on the notion of time and the importance of removing “measurement” at the time of the event. Is there a form of TIME appropriate for transmitting an “architectural lesson”? Is there a practical experience of the journey that the lessons of Fernando Távora have transmitted to those who recognize him as a teacher? The present paper aims to illustrate some of the themes raised in his diary.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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