The Porto School

The Porto School designates a current of architectural thought and practice that emerged in the city of Porto from the mid-twentieth century onwards and that became one of the most influential in the history of Portuguese architecture. More than an institution, it is a genealogy of masters and disciples, inseparable from the teaching delivered first at the Porto School of Fine Arts (ESBAP) and, since 1979-1980, at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP). Its distinctive trait is the refusal of universal formulas and an obstinate attention to place: each work responds to the physical, historical and social context that receives it.

From the Fine Arts to the FAUP

The institutional seed was sown when the teaching of architecture gained autonomy within the Porto Fine Arts. The turning point came under the direction of Carlos Ramos (1952-1967), who opened the school to contemporary currents and replaced academic rigidity with a teaching based on the study of the project, on debate and on critical freedom. It was in this environment that Fernando Távora (1923-2005) was trained, the tutelary figure of the movement, who early on questioned both academicism and the uncritical application of the dogmas of the international Modern Movement.

Távora took part in the CIAM debates and was one of the protagonists of the Survey on Portuguese Popular Architecture (published in 1961), a study that demonstrated the non-existence of a “national style” and revealed, by contrast, the constructive intelligence of regional vernacular architectures. That lesson — to reconcile the abstraction and economy of the modern language with the memory of place — became the backbone of the School.

A lineage of masters

The strength of the movement lies in the direct transmission between generations. Távora was the teacher and mentor of Álvaro Siza Vieira, who began his career in Távora’s studio and would go on to receive the Pritzker Prize in 1992. Siza, in turn, guided Eduardo Souto de Moura, distinguished with the same award in 2011. To this line are added names such as Viana de Lima, Arménio Losa, Alcino Soutinho, Alexandre Alves Costa, Sérgio Fernandez and Pedro Ramalho, who extended the influence of the current to both teaching and practice.

There is no style of the Porto School, but a method: to look at the place before drawing, and to let the programme, the terrain and the light dictate the form.

Emblematic works mark out this trajectory: Siza’s Casa de Chá da Boa Nova and the Tidal Pools of Leça da Palmeira, embedded in the coastal rock; Távora’s Market of Santa Maria da Feira; the Bairro da Bouça, the result of the SAAL housing programme (1974-1976); and the FAUP building itself, designed by Siza, a built manifesto of the pedagogy it houses. The School’s relationship with contemporary architecture in Portugal is, therefore, one of continuity and mastery.

Meaning and legacy

The Porto School prolonged and reinterpreted modernism in Portugal in a critical and rooted key, far removed both from the official monumentality of the Estado Novo and from abstract internationalism. Its rigour in design, its economy of means and its sensitivity to the territory gave Portugal a lasting international standing, above all through the work of Álvaro Siza. Today, the expression continues to be used — sometimes with caution — to name not a formal label but an attitude: the conviction that architecture is born from the patient dialogue between the modern and the place.