In 1987, a competition by invitation was launched by the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon for the design of the new building of its School of Communication and Media Studies. Regarding this project, João Luís Carrilho da Graça stated that ‘the School of Communication and Media Studies is made with my initial enthusiasm for Russian Constructivism’. The exhibition Flashback / Carrilho da Graça provides a reading of this architect’s work starting from his paradigmatic references, among which we may emphasise the most important avant-garde movement of the first half of the 20th century. This exhibition sheds light not only on the circumstances that will have led Carrilho da Graça to his fascination with constructivism, through both quotations from the architect himself and books from his personal library, but also on his enchantment with suprematism, through the presentation of various pieces by Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky, kindly loaned to this exhibition by museums of national and international scope. In this regard, a conversation was promoted between Delfim Sardo, one of the greatest contemporary art specialists in Portugal (and who has an intimate knowledge of Carrilho da Graça’s work), Jean-Louis Cohen, one of the most important architectural historians of today (and who has come to reflect specifically on Russian Constructivism), and João Luís Carrilho da Graça himself, in a revisiting of this historical period that also views it in the light of our time and evaluates the ultimate validity of its assumptions.

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Arquitectura,Carrilho da Graça,Arquitectura portuguesa