New Book: Expedition to an Intensive Architecture

The North Section of the Portuguese Architects Association has begun the publication of a series of small books with the reports from the journeys of the winning proposals of Fernando Távora’s Award. The one dedicated to my journey corresponds, in part, to the conference presented in Matosinhos, on 6th October 2014 (maintaining its orality), where I’ve presented some of the ideas resulting from the journey (and which have been contributing to my research project) instead of a report of it. The journey, under the title “Expedition to an Intensive Architecture,” took place in two moments: first, I traveled to Japan to visit, mainly, Kazuo Shinohara’s houses and to learn about Japanese culture; in the second moment, I started the journey in Central Europe, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic, to visit, above all, the works of Adolf Loos, and then flew to the icy lands of Northern Europe to visit the works of Sigurd Lewerentz and Peter Zumthor. The original application to the award contained the following synopsis: “This is an expedition journey, because it passes through the middle of things, through the words, through the places, through distant landscapes, unfamiliar lands, inaccurate boundaries... But it is the only possible journey, when one is looking for an intensive architecture, a still unknown place of Theory of Architecture. The expedition takes on two important purposes: it is born from an intuition, which comes from all the other journeys that start with uncertainty, a need to “leave”, to find the time and space to create something new, which does not yet exist, and, finally, to create and construct a theory for an intensive architecture, which moves away from history and criticism (in their common sense), but crystallises this thought that overflows the work of architecture, which is found in things, in perception, intuition, sensitivity and time, and that can only emerge on the surface of the text (theory), when one looks at what exists in the world (and not only in the work) as traces. And then there is a discovery of the work of architecture only possible by walking, the presence of the body, the gaze and the time. In practice, a horizontal line is drawn across Central Europe and one looks up and to the extremes of this line: the lands, to be discovered, are vast empty spaces to the north (Central Europe and the Fjords) and the East. But the process is never one of predetermination, but rather one of restlessness: leaving, leaving.” The book (only in Portuguese) can be bought here.