Octávio Lixa Filgueiras Information System
ESBAP, discipline of Analytical Architecture by Professor Octávio Lixa Filgueiras: Operation Barredo, survey by António de Brito, 1967-68
... to know in order to understand (...) For many the architect is what he does; for a few, the architect also thinks; for those who know, the architect, to realise himself, must know how to do and, at the same time, know things, and people, and the world, and life ...
Octávio Lixa Filgueiras, Da função social do arquiteto (On the Architect´s Social Function), 1962, p.16
Octávio Lixa Filgueiras (1922-1996) was one of the first Portuguese architects to explore connections between architecture and the social sciences. In addition to being an architect, Lixa Filgueiras was also an ethnographer and an archaeologist. He graduated from the Porto School of Fine Arts (ESBAP) in 1953, where he was a student of Carlos Ramos and a colleague of, among others, Fernando Távora, Fernando Lanhas, João Andresen and José Carlos Loureiro. In his degree thesis (CODA) Lixa Figueiras presented an innovative theoretical-practical approach to the question of the rural world as a central theme for modern urbanism. Filgueiras was a member of the Organisation of Modern Architects (ODAM) and took part in the preparatory meetings of the CIAM Porto group. It is in this context that the CODA research is being resumed in order to write about Habitat, seeking to give his 1953 contribution to the Charte de l’Habitat (The Habitat Charter), the document which the members of CIAM International wished to create as a complement to the famous Charte d’Athènes de l’Urbanisme (Athens Charter of Urbanism).
Filgueiras´s reflections on the Habitat Charter explore the humanistic and social dimension of architecture. This dimension would become evident in his participation in the Survey of Popular Architecture developed between 1955 and 1961. The fieldwork carried out by the Survey team coordinated by Lixa Filgueiras in the Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro region would become essential for the work submitted by the CIAM PORTO group to CIAM 10 which took place in Dubrovnik in 1956. It was also a central element in his teaching activity at ESBAP, where he began his career as a teacher in 1962, teh year he wrote his most relevant work, "Da função social do Arquitecto " [“The Architect´s Social Function”]. In his discipline of Analytical Architecture he promoted an innovative pedagogical method, the Urban Surveys. His interest in people, in their habitat, in their customs and traditions also led him to traditional and erudite naval architecture, for which he became one of the main scholars.
His collection reflects the valuable contribution which Lixa Filgueiras represents for Portuguese culture in general, and for architecture in particular. In the multiple roles he played, Filgueiras´s intellectual contribution was always guided by a profound humanist ethic which places him as an essential figure in policies relating to the preservation of Portuguese cultural heritage. It consists of more than 1200 drawings and 6 linear metres of written items relating both to his academic training and to the professional activity he developed, as an architect and teacher. The collection also includes photographic records and a library consisting of 1377 books covering areas as diverse as architecture, urbanism, history, art and heritage. The integration of this documentation into the Marques da Silva Foundation will associate Filgueiras´s intellectual production with that of other architects who, like him, have made a decisive contribution to the creation and preservation of Portugal´s architectural heritage..
On the International Day of Monuments and Sites, the Marques da Silva Foundation will mark the donation of the collection of the Architect and Professor Octávio Lixa Filgueiras. The programme, curated by Professors Gonçalo Canto Moniz and Nelson Mota, includes, in addition to the formalisation of the arrangement through the signing of the agreement between the Chairman of the Foundation´s Board and Octávio Lixa Filgueiras´s heirs, a colloquium and an exhibition where we try to reflect on the way in which the Habitat idea is present in his writings, in his drawings, in his photographs, in his books and also in his architecture, discussing his contribution to the consolidation of a humanistic approach to the construction and preservation of the cultural and architectural heritage.
(Translated by Gill Stoker)
See: Digital Archive and of OLF Library
Other information:
Octávio Lixa Filgueiras: on the architect´s social function | General summary of the programme
See Poster
See leaflet with texts by the curators and by Octávio Lixa Filgueiras
See photographic album of 18.04.2017
About the Exhibition
