PHOTOGRAPHY, MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND THE ” OPORTO SCHOOL”: INTERPRETATIONS REGARDING THE TEÓFILO REGO ARCHIVE
Ever since the beginning of photography’s history, architecture has been one of its main subjects. In the last two centuries, many times, an image, usually a photograph, would be the first encounter with a building or a built environment. However, despite its importance, the study of architectural photography is generally underestimated.
This research project focuses on the analysis of the relationship between photography and architecture, particularly in the modern architecture emergence in Portugal, based on the study of the photographer Teófilo Rego’s collection, which documents the works of the generation of architects from Oporto called “Oporto school”.
The aim is to explore the potential of the photographic record as a tool for the development of new interpretations of theory, criticism and history of architecture, from 1940 onwards, when the dissemination of modern architecture and the practice of photography itself converged in Portugal.
The starting point of this study will be the archive of the photographer Teófilo Rego (1914-1993). Belonging to the Manuel Leão Foundation and comprising some 600,000 photographic specimens – still to be systematically studied – this collection documents, among other themes, one of the most complete portrayals of Modern Architecture in Northern Portugal, bringing together photographs of the work of architects such as José Marques da Silva, João Andresen, Januário Godinho, Arnaldo Araújo, Luís Pádua Ramos, José Carlos Loureiro, Alfredo Viana de Lima, Agostinho Ricca Gonçalves and Rogério de Azevedo, among others.
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In other words, the aim is not only to analyse the way in which, at that time, the architectural project and its image inter-influenced each other, and how image production and photographic montage became communication and project tools; but also to discern the relationships that were established between photographers and architects, and to assess how the commissioned photographs were used: whether the aim was strictly professional, whether it was used to build a personal archive, or whether it was directed towards exhibitions and publications. For each of the cases, it is crucial to understand to what extent the photographer remains anonymous, while the image highlights the author of the photographed object: the architect. Demonstrating precisely how, since modern architecture, photography has constituted itself as an essential instrument in the conception, dissemination and promotion of the architectural project; as well as an indispensable tool in the communication of the ideas and theories that it sustains.
The main objectives of this project are threefold
1) To begin the recovery, organisation and study of the Teófilo Rego archive, in order to build up a documentary collection on photography and modern architecture in Porto and northern Portugal.
2) The production of a critical reading of the relationship between photography and architecture, from the context of the emergence of the ” Oporto school”, in order to clarify the role of photography as a communication and project tool, in the field of architectural production, from the emergence of modern Portuguese architecture to the present day.
3) The public dissemination and adaptation of this documentary collection, and the respective critical reading, to specialized and non-specialized audiences, through the creation of an on-line database, an itinerary of modern architecture in Porto and Northern Portugal, an exhibition project and the respective educational service.
Thus, through this triple approach, the project will seek to go beyond the simple preservation and contextualisation of this collection, allowing the public to access the photographic images in question and all the knowledge produced. It will also provide, by means of an exhibition and educational service, an experimental space for reflection and learning, in an attempt to work on a photographic archive from a contemporary perspective.
2013-2015
(FCT: PTDC/ATP-AQI/4805/2012 – COMPETE: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028054)
