History of Contemporary Architecture

Code:

500502

Acronym:

500502

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
CNAEF	Architecture and Urbanism

Instance: 2019/2020 - A

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Arquitectura (A)
Course/CS Responsible:	Integrated Master Degree in Architecture

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MIARQ	145	MIARQ	3	-	9	-	243

Teaching language

Suitable for English-speaking students

Objectives

The aim of History of Contemporary Architecture is the critical knowledge of the architecture of contemporary age, considered as the period that begins wioth the end of baroque architecture and ends in present time. In the mid eighteenth century, the rise of the scientific archeology (with the separation between archeologists and architects) and the enlargement of the antiquity sources, no more predominantly related to roman examples, have an important role in a new way of understanding the relation of architecture with its own past. In this period different motivations intersect: the search of the origins as a new fundament of knowledge, the reorganization of the industrial city, abstract art and the rise of the modern movement, the discussion of its principles after World War II, etc. The year 1750, a possible date for its beginning, is the year Denis Diderot's published the "Prospectus" of the Encyclopédie witch would initiate its publication the following year.
In the lectures, the most important buildings, architectural projects and ideas of the period will be exposed diachronically. The particular circumstances of the architectural works will be discussed, but also its precedents and its consequences on other works in a broader time perspective.The relation with Portuguese examples will also be discussed, underlying their particular circumstances.
One work of contemporary Portuguese architecture, chosen by the students according to their interests, will be the subject of the group work. Throughout  the year, with a tutorial guidance, the students must extend and develop the reasons that gave rise to the initial choice. Starting from contemporary debate, they must also research new relations that problematize the work of architecture studied throughout the academic year.
The students will also visit some contemporary Portuguese architectural works that must be photographed and assembled in a field note book. This notebook is a complement of the lectures, but it is also a way to investigate the relations between the works visited and the architectural work studied in their group work.

Learning outcomes and competences

The works developed during the year must empower the students to critically interpret understand contemporary architecture. The relation between the works proposed must help the students to develop their own way of thinking on architecture.

Working method

Presencial

Program

1. General characterization of the studied period.
2. Lord Burlington and William Kent. Neo-Palladianism and the landscape garden in England. 
3. Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713-1769), the primitive hut and "the city as a forest". The reconstruction of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake.

4. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78). 
Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-99). Archaeology, reason and autobiography.
5. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806). Character and the "architecture parlante". Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760-1834). Eclecticism and project methodology.
6. The German architecture in the XVIII and XIX centuries. Friederich Weinbrenner and the expansion of Karlsruhe. The expansion of Porto under the Almadas' government.

7.The German architecture in the XVIII and XIX centuries.Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). Schinkel's Berlin. 
8. Iron architecture. Utopic Socialism and the rationalisation of industrial city. The structural gothic in France and the Arts and Crafts movement in England. The over-occupation of the XIX century and the garden city. 
9. "The forms of modern city housing" (presentation of Carlos Martí Arís' text). 
10. Frank LLoyd Wright (1867-1959).

11. Adolf Loos (1870-1933).

12. Le Corbusier (1887-1965).
Walter Gropius (1883-1969).

13. Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969).

14.Walter Gropius (1883-1969).

15. Architecture after second World War. Critical analysis and discussion of the principles of the modern movement. Italian neo-realism. From CIAM to Team 10. The New Brutalism and italian Neo-liberty. Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). Luis Barragán (1902-1988). Louis Kahn (1901-1974).
16. The 70's and the 80's. Reason and analogy, complexity and contradiction in architecture. Robert Venturi (1925-2018) and Aldo Rossi (1931-1987).
17. The last decades of the 20th century.

Mandatory literature

Banham Reyner; Theory and design in the first machine age. ISBN: 0-85139-632-1
Benevolo Leonardo; Historia de la arquitectura moderna. ISBN: 84-252-1793-8
Bergdoll Barry; European architecture,1750-1890. ISBN: 978-0-19-284222-0
Colquhoun Alan; Arquitectura moderna. ISBN: 84-252-1988-4
Correia José Eduardo Horta; Vila Real de Santo António. ISBN: 972-9483-29-9
Curtis William J. R.; Modern architecture since 1900. ISBN: 0-7148-2478-X
Frampton Kenneth; Historia critica de la arquitectura moderna. ISBN: 84-252-1628-1
França José-Augusto; Lisboa Pombalina e o Iluminismo
Giedion Siegfried; Espacio, tiempo y arquitectura. ISBN: 84-237-0375-4
Ferrão Bernardo; Projecto e transformação urbana do Porto na época dos Almadas
Hunt John Dixon; The picturesque garden in europe. ISBN: 0-500-28508-X
Machado Carlos Manuel de Castro Cabral; Anonimato e banalidade
Machado, Carlos; "A Presença do Passado" / "The Presence of the Past", Eduardo Souto de Moura, Concursos / Competitions 1979-2010, Porto: FAUP, 2011
Mandroux França Marie Thérèse; Quatro fases da urbanização do Porto no século XVIII
Middleton Robin; Arquitectura moderna. ISBN: 84-03-33026-X
Milheiro Ana Vaz; A construção do Brasil. ISBN: 972-9483-76-0
Pevsner Nikolaus; Os pioneiros do design moderno
Sica Paolo; História del Urbanismo. ISBN: 84-7088-296-1
Silva Ana Sofia; La Intimidad de la Casa, ed Autora, 2013
Solà-Morales Ignasi de; Inscripciones. ISBN: 84-252-1913-2
Solà-Morales Ignacio de; Intervenciones. ISBN: 84-252-2043-2
Tafuri Manfredo; Arquitectura Contemporânea. ISBN: 84-03-33027-8
Watkin David; German architecture and the classical ideal
Watkin David; The English vision
Zevi Bruno; História da arquitectura moderna

Complementary Bibliography

Almeida, Pedro Vieira, José Manuel Fernandes; A Aquitectura Moderna, Historia da Arte em Portugal, vol 14, Lisboa, Publicações Alfa, 1986
Becker Annette 273; Portugal. ISBN: 3-7913-1910-8
Fernandez Sérgio; Percurso
Gomes, Paulo Varela ; "Arquitectura, Os últimos vinte anos", História da Arte Portuguesa, Vol 3, Lisboa, Círculo de Leitores, 1995
Portas Nuno; A Evolução da Arquitectura Moderna em Portugal, Bruno Zevi, História da Arquitetura Moderna, Lisboa, Arcádia, 1973
Portas Nuno 340; Arquitectura portuguesa contemporânea
Serpa Luis 340; Depois do Modernismo
Sindicato nacional dos arquitectos; Arquitectura popular em Portugal
Tostões Ana; A idade maior. ISBN: 978-989-8527-04-2
Tostões Ana; Os verdes anos na arquitectura portuguesa dos anos 50. ISBN: 972-9483-30-2
Williams John 730; Architectures à Porto. ISBN: 2-87009-322-5

Comments from the literature

Complementary bibliography is dedicated to Portuguese architecture and suggests some general synthesis about twentieth century Portuguese architecture.

Teaching methods and learning activities

The Curriculatr Unit History of Contemporry Architecture i divided in two componets: a theoretical component (T) and a theoretical-practical component (TP). 
1. Theorical component
1.1. The students will attend 90 minutes weekly lectures: 
the content of these lectures, as well as the texts sugested for reading in the practical group work tutorial classes, will be the subject of two written exams (90 minutes).
1.2. A field notebook with a photographic recording of 15 works of Portuguese contemporary architecture is also part of the theoretical component. To carry out this field notebook, the students must carefully select and assemble the photographic images. The architectural work studied in the practical group work, can (or should) also influence, not only the choice of the buildings to photograph, but also its final assemblage. One lecture at the beginning of the academic year will be dedicated to the accomplishment of this task.
The realization of the Field notebook is facultative.
2. Theoretical-practical component
2.1. Practical group work:
- Portuguese contemporary buildings will be the subject of the practical group works because its considered essential to be able to visit the architectural works to be studied; these works are from architects whose production is, at its most part, from the twentieth century; the period between the Enlightenment and the end of the nineteenth century will be discussed in the lectures (it can also be discussed in the practical group works, retrospectively, depending on their particular subject).
- to the working groups created at the beginning of the academic year, a list of the proposed architectural works to study will be given; the students must choose one of them and investigate, starting from the material reality of architecture, the reasons and conditions at its origin as well as its relations with other works, from the same author or from others, contemporary or not; those relations enable to understand architecture in a broad cultural frame that gives it its most comprehensive sense. 
- depending on the development of the group work, some texts will be proposed for reading; those texts will tackle, when the investigation justifies it, coincidental or complementary themes, polemics between different authors of the same movement or from different ones, etc.; they will help the students to better understand the reasons and motives at the origin of the architectural projects, situating them, not only in their own time, but also as a result of choices that have their roots in a genealogy that goes through different generations, enabling us to capture what Henri Focillon called the "spiritual families".
- this group work must synthetize, in the most convenient and intelligible way, the whole investigation produced throughout the academic year; its format and its binding, its graphic material, the relation between text and images, etc., must be treated in accordance with the goal previously exposed.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

designation	Weight (%)
Teste	50,00
Trabalho escrito	50,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	98,00
Frequência das aulas	36,00
Trabalho de campo	20,00
Trabalho de investigação	40,00
Trabalho escrito	25,00
Trabalho laboratorial	24,00
Total:	243,00

Eligibility for exams

The students must attend a minimum of 75% of the tutorial classes.
The evaluation of the practical group work is continuous with three marks throughout the academic year, each one of them presupposing all the work done till the beginning of the year. The last one is the final and colletive mark of the practical group work.
The two exams will be held at the end of each semester.
The fiel notebook will be evaluated at the end of the academic year with a single personal mark.

Calculation formula of final grade

To obtain a final positive classification the students must present the practical group work and the two exams, obtaining in each one of them a positive mark (minimum 9,5). The final mark of the exams will be the arithmetical average of the two marks. Given the exceptional situation of the students confinement, the field notebook will not be taken into account in the calculation the final grade.

Calculation formula of the final grade (FG):

        (Exam 1 + Exam 2): 2 + PGW 
FG = ---------------------------------           
                  2                        
PGW Practical Group work


If the difference between the classifications in the arithmetic average of the exams and the practical group work is superior to 4 points, the final classification will be as follows:

FG = 0,7 (Exam 1 + Exam 2):2  + 0,3 PGW 

If it's not possible to calculate the final grade, the marks obtained will be hold for two years. After this period, the student must repeat all the components.  
The students that exceeded the referred period will have exceptionally the possibility of obtaining a final positive classification in the current year of 2015/16.

 

Examinations or Special Assignments

A special exam will be held in July to allow any student to improve his final grade.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

The students that by law  are not obliged to attend the classes must participate at least in five sessions of the tutorial classes dedicated to the practical work in each semester.
The written exams are also obligatory.

Classification improvement

Any student can attend the special exam realized in July to improve his final grade. This exam of 120 minutes, will deal all the subjects taught during the academic year.
The mark obtained in this exam replaces the arithmetical average of the two previous exams in the calculation formula of the final grade. If the mark obtained in the special exam is inferior to the arithmetical average of the two previous exams, the arithmetical average of the two previous exams prevails.