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Pinto, P. (2019). The teaching didactics of Álvaro Siza. 2019 ACSA Teachers Conference.

P. D. Pinto,  "The teaching didactics of Álvaro Siza", in 2019 ACSA Teachers Conf., Antwerp, 2019

@misc{pinto2019_1776772526710,
	author = "Pinto, P.",
	title = "The teaching didactics of Álvaro Siza",
	year = "2019",
	howpublished = "Outro",
	url = "https://www.acsa-arch.org/conference/2019-teachers-conference/"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - The teaching didactics of Álvaro Siza
T2  - 2019 ACSA Teachers Conference
AU  - Pinto, P.
PY  - 2019
CY  - Antwerp
UR  - https://www.acsa-arch.org/conference/2019-teachers-conference/
AB  - The world-renowned Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza (1933), graduated from the Superior School of Fine Arts of Porto (Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto, or ESBAP, 1949-1955), awarded with the “Mies van der Rohe” prize in 1988 and the “Pritzker” prize in 1992, was also bestowed with 18 doctoral degrees of “honoris causa”. In addition, he has been visiting professor in schools like the EP of Lausanne, the University of Pennsylvania or the GSD of Harvard, this last one as "Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor".  He was also assistant professor in his “Porto school”, in a semi-continuous regime, between 1966 and 2003, when reaching an age limit, he had to retired from teaching.

In his life-long relation with in the Porto school, he played a fundamental role in the overall construction of the school reputation, and, simultaneously, he witnessed, as a student and as a educator, the changes in architecture education over almost five decades. He was still a student during the period of transition from "beaux-arts" system (in Portugal until 1952-57 reform of the artistic education) to the "modern" way of teaching architecture (from 1952 until the social and cultural turmoil’s of 1969) . He would have an important role, both as an assistant teacher and as leading practitioner, in the consolidation of the school during the Portuguese evolution towards a democratic regime, being actively involved in the pedagogical debates and experiments around the troubled revolutionary period (both preparing and evolving after the democratic revolution of April 1974).

It was a decisive moment, from which would arise a consolidated pedagogical methodology.  From the post-revolutionary times of 1976, until 1984, the year in which the school gained full autonomy from the Fine Arts School of Porto, assuming the form of a university college (Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, FAUP ).

A more visible and well-known aspect of Siza association with the FAUP are his famous designs for the Carlos Ramos Pavilion (1985-1986, Images 1 and 5) and the new school facilities of FAUP (1986-1993, Images 2, 3 and 4). Somehow both buildings embodies the symbolic transition from a traditional vocational training of architecture to a new (or not so?) university environment, thus, one may affirm, that these buildings are proposing a pedagogical space that may be directly related to the an idea of education.

This idea of a school was built over a long period.  It considered several factors:
a)	it sought different methodologies;
b)	rehearsed relations in-between research and practice;
c)	relations of architecture with exact and social sciences;
d)	experimented the “denying the drawing” (d) (which,  according to Álvaro Siza, was a very much slandered period by those who were against the socialist aims of the democratic revolution of 1974);
e)	lived the radical pedagogical experiences associated with the legendary SAAL  process (1974-1976), in which the school (faculties and students) were directly involved in real practice designs;
f)	returned to the “resume of drawing” (f), again as a stronghold of a disciplinary and pedagogical methodology, which would gain force precisely against the perils associated with the entrance in the university.

In this paper-communication, we propose a review of this singular history, but also, and above all, we propose an insight into the Álvaro Siza's positions on architectural education and on his didactics at the Porto School.

To accomplish this, we rely on a set of Siza 10 texts generically about architecture education (published in a 2009 in collection of Álvaro Siza written work), as well as on specific documentation about his pedagogical experience at the Porto School. This latter one compromises a series of documents in which Siza takes explicit positions on the pedagogical direction of the school and, on the other hand, there are testimonies of its didactics in the classroom, related to the units he taught. We will focus on his times as an assistant professor in “Composition of Architecture” (1966- 1969), and as assistant professor of “Constructions” and of “Static” (1976-1986). Between 1969 and 1976 Siza refused to teach at the school, complaining both with the political regime in Portugal and with the school reaction to it, that is, answering against its pedagogical project. Culminating this period, we will observe the relations between Siza pedagogical and didactical experience and the design of the new FAUP facilities in-between 1984-1993.

ER  -