Housing research was introduced in Portugal during the 1960s, at the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, LNEC), as a prominent scientific area in the international post-war conjuncture. The contributions of the LNEC’s research work guided architectural practice and political decisions following the aftermath of the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974. Based on primary sources, including documentation found at the LNEC library and archives, but also on the qualitative analysis of several interviews/oral statements conducted between 2017 and 2019 with the LNEC’s former researchers, this paper discloses how the LNEC’s legacy on housing research supported the establishment of the Portuguese housing programme in the 1970s, with effects in current times, both on a scientific level as well as for policy guidance.

The authors would like to thank Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC) for providing the access to the archived documentation in the scope of the postdoctoral research project (SFRH/BPD/117167/2016). The authors are grateful to architects Alexand

The Portuguese National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC),Scientific research,Architecture,Urbanism,Housing,Planning policy

• Educational Sciences - Social Sciences
• Other Humanities - Humanities

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• The Portuguese National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC) and the History of Research in Architecture