PB 05 PAULO DAVID the lesson of the continuity ONLINE PREVIEW by AMAG PUBLISHER

PAULO DAVID

THE LESSON OF THE CONTINUITY

LA LEZIONE DELLA CONTINUITÀ

Barbara Bogoni

PAULO DAVID THE LESSON OF THE CONTINUITY

LA

LEZIONE DELLA CONTINUITÀ

This book was produced with the contribution of the Department DAStU of Architecture and Urban Studies of the Politecnico di Milano and the Regional Government of the Autonomous Region of Madeira.

Questo libro è stato realizzato con il contributo del Dipartimento DAStU di Archiettura e Studi Urbani del Politecnico di Milano e del Governo regionale della Regione autonoma di Madeira.

BACK AND FORTH AND BACK AGAIN ANDATA E RITORNO E ANDATA

Ricardo Carvalho

ABOUT WHAT AND THANK YOU COSA E GRAZIE

Barbara Bogoni

SPECIES OF LINKS

SPECIE DI RELAZIONI

Paulo David

AN ISLAND, AN ARCHITECT, A POETICAL APPROACH

UN’ISOLA, UN ARCHITETTO, UNA POETICA

Barbara Bogoni

CONTINUITY AS THOUGHT, PATHWAY, PROJECT.

ARCHITECTURE AS LANDSCAPE CONTINUITÀ COME PENSIERO, PERCORSO, PROGETTO.

ARCHITETTURA COME PAESAGGIO

Barbara Bogoni

ICONOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE

ARCHIVIO ICONOGRAFICO

Federica Felici

BIOGRAPHICAL DIGRESSIONS

DIGRESSIONI BIOGRAFICHE

Federica Felici EULOGY ELOGIO

Paulo David

BACK AND FORTH AND BACK AGAIN

Ricardo Carvalho

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine–trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens

Dear Paulo,

I write to you on Carnival Day. The atelier is working but the city is calm. I like these days when you feel less pressure from traffic and tourism. They are good for writing. We can’t speak of silence, but of a laconic atmosphere, which Sundays also have. It feels like Spring but it’s still Winter. When you decided to leave Lisbon, over twenty years ago, you certainly felt this

Ricardo Carvalho is an architect and founder of Ricardo Carvalho Arquitectos & Associados, based in Lisbon. He is Professor and the current Dean of the Department of Architecture of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (DA/UAL). He was visiting professor in several institutions such as the BTU Cottbus, Germany; Universidade de Navarra (UNAV), Spain; Carleton University, Canada; IUAV Venezia, Italy; and Escola da Cidade, São Paulo, Brazil. He was curator for exhibitions and published several articles and books such as “A Cidade Social (Tinta da China, 2014), “Work, Situation, Process” (A+A, 2021) and “Todas as Direcções” (Note, 2022). He was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe award in 2015 and 2021 and for the Swiss Architectural Prize in 2020. Ricardo Carvalho was the 2022 Laureate of the AICA Architecture Prize.

Ricardo Carvalho è architetto e fondatore dello studio Ricardo Carvalho Arquitectos & Associados, com sede a Lisbona. È Professore e l’attuale Direttore del Dipartimento di Architettura della Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (DA/UAL). È stato visiting professor in numerose istituzioni come: BTU Cottbus, Germania; Universidade de Navarra (UNAV), Spagna; Carleton University, Canada; IUAV Venezia, Italia; Escola da Cidade, São Paulo, Brazil. È stato curatore di mostre e ha pubblicato numerosi articoli e libri tra i quali “A Cidade Social (Tinta da China, 2014), “Work, Situation, Process” (A+A, 2021) e “Todas as Direcções” (Note, 2022). È stato nominato per il premio Mies van der Rohe nel 2015 e nel 2021 e per lo Swiss Architectural Prize nel 2020. Ricardo Carvalho è stato insignito nel 2022 del Premio di Architettura AICA.

ANDATA E RITORNO E ANDATA

Ricardo Carvalho

Si deve avere un animo d’inverno

Per contemplare questo gelo e i pini

Con le rame incrostate dalla neve;

E avere avuto freddo lungo tempo

Per guardare i ginepri irti di ghiaccio

I rudi abeti nel brillìo remoto

Del sole di gennaio; e non pensare

D’alcun duolo nel gemito del vento,

O nel suono di queste poche foglie,

Voci di una regione visitata

Da quel vento che sempre

Sibila sullo stesso nudo luogo

Per chi ascolta, chi ascolta nel nevaio, E nulla in sé medesimo, contempla

Là quel nulla che è e che non è.

Wallace Stevens, L’uomo di neve [01]

Caro Paulo

Ti scrivo nel giorno di Carnevale. Lo studio è in attività, ma la città è tranquilla. Mi piacciono questi giorni in cui si sente meno la pressione del traffico e del turismo. Sono ottimi per scrivere. Non dico che si tratti di silenzio, ma di un’atmosfera laconica, che anche le domeniche possiedono.

Sembra Primavera, ma siamo ancora in Inverno. Quando hai deciso di lasciare Lisbona, più di vent’anni fa, sono sicuro che hai sentito questa differenza, nei suoni, nella pressione, nel fatto di non avere più gli inverni.

Imparare la strada del ritorno, verso l’isola di Madeira, come dici nel testo pubblicato sulla rivista 2G, è stato l’inizio di un percorso particolare. Oggi, credo che siano le partenze e i ritorni a interessarti di più. Non solo da e verso Lisbona, ma da e verso ogni luogo.

La tua posizione è divenuta nel tempo più radicale, nel modo in cui hai scelto i programmi, nel modo in cui hai deciso di apparire, nel modo in cui hai deciso di mostrare il tuo lavoro. Non sono stato alla all’esposizione nella galleria Ma a Tokyo, ma ho un ricordo vivido della mostra che abbiamo allestito insieme al RIBA di Londra, che Jonathan Sergison ha deciso di chiamare “Overlappings”, sovrapposizioni. Quando è arrivato il momento di progettare l’esposizione, tu e João Favila avete condiviso con noi un ricordo dell’isola di Madeira, dove alcune persone si spostavano stagionalmente con le loro cose conservate in bauli. Queste rappresentavano delle presenze enigmatiche nello spazio domestico. C’è una risonanza premoderna qui e, forse per questo, i bauli sono stati il supporto della nostra mostra. Pesanti, gravi, enigmatiche, ma comunque capaci di essere trasportate in giro per il mondo. A pensarci bene, questa è una bella metafora del lavoro di alcuni architetti portoghesi.

Ricordo in particolare il tuo scrigno, dove si potevano vedere due modelli topografici, in cui l’architettura era praticamente assente. Era come se tu dicessi che le vere permanenze sono i sistemi naturali. Che essi sono più potenti dei manufatti costruiti. Naturalmente, i modelli avevano senso solo perché interpretavano un magnifico manufatto costruito, la Casa das Mudas. In questa visione, il lavoro intellettuale attribuiva significato ai sistemi, il lavoro intellettuale riconosceva il paesaggio come un insieme di sistemi e il paesaggio si riaffermava e acquistava significato grazie alla presenza di un particolare artefatto.

Questa idea che i sistemi giustifichino un’opera e che un’opera dia significato ai sistemi è probabilmente uno dei tuoi più significativi contributi. La mostra “Paisagem como Arquitetura” (Paesaggio come Architettura)” che hai allestito con João Gomes da Silva negli spazi del Garagem Sul del Centro Cultural de Belém, era una dimostrazione, su scala più ambiziosa, di queste possibilità. È un peccato che tu non abbia scritto su queste idee.

Credo che dopo Casa das Mudas, l’opera che, giustamente, ti ha portato all’attenzione del mondo della nostra disciplina, il tuo lavoro stesse lentamente cercando una certa leggerezza e informalità. Anche in questo caso possiamo parlare di apprendimento della via del ritorno. Il ritorno a

un modo di agire che non può essere sempre l’ambizione dell’atemporalità. I lavori successivi sembrano assumere la loro non permanenza, a favore di un’idea, di un’esperienza. Vedo il progetto degli accessi alle grotte in questo modo.

Qualche settimana fa abbiamo pranzato insieme a Lisbona e abbiamo parlato di ciò che vogliamo fare nel prossimo futuro: realizzare progetti di edilizia collettiva pubblica, nuovi libri e nuovi viaggi. Prima di trovarci insieme a Funchal, dove mi hai invitato per la prima volta, siamo stati insieme nell’arcipelago delle Galapagos, dove mi dicevi che riconoscevi molta della materia-mondo dell’isola di Madeira. Ricordo di aver pensato che l’appartenenza a un luogo è la forza delle letture universali. L’inverso, l’essere globale, ostacola la comprensione del particolare.

A pranzo abbiamo anche parlato di Funchal e della tua nuova opera costruita in quella città, un ponte pedonale. Eduardo Souto de Moura, nel suo progetto per un ponte a Venezia, ha citato Aldo Rossi che, a sua volta, ha sostenuto che tutti gli architetti dovrebbero progettare un ponte. Architettura, infrastruttura, arte, città, connessione di persone e merci, reinvenzione del luogo e, nello specifico, dei margini: tutto converge nell’esercizio progettuale del ponte. C’è anche la cooperazione alla base di quest’idea, nella sua genesi.

In questo nuovo ponte di Funchal, infatti, tutto converge verso un luogo che evoca la storia di una città e del suo rapporto con i suoi elementi, una storia fatta di comprensione e incomprensione, di saggezza antica e incuria contemporanea. La passerella che proponi inaugura un nuovo momento della città, utilizzando la memoria collettiva per progettare un manufatto contemporaneo. Sofisticato e perenne. Racconterà molte storie, come il ponte sulla Drina, che in cinque secoli ha visto sorgere e cadere imperi, guerre e alleanze, dittature e democrazie e, soprattutto, generazioni e generazioni che sono riuscite a continuare il cammino. Ho promesso che ti avrei regalato il libro di Ivo Andrić, in cui il narratore è il ponte.

Wallace Stevens suggerisce, nella poesia che apre questa lettera, che è necessario aver avuto molto freddo per riuscire a vedere i ginepri intirizziti nel ghiaccio. Se vogliamo applicare questa idea al tuo lavoro, basta mettersi nella posizione di chi ha osservato a lungo le condizioni specifiche di un’isola e da lì ha estratto la materia-mondo per essere architetto.

Lisbona, 21 Febbraio 2023

[01] Da Mattino domenicale e altre poesie, Einaudi 1954; traduzione a cura di Renato Poggioli

Grutas de São Vicente | @ FG+SG

Passagem Pedonal na Ribeira de Santa Luzia | @ Federica Felici

Casa das Mudas | @ FG+SG

SPECIES OF LINKS

Paulo David

If we consider that writing a literary text is to construct a building with windows, some open and others closed on their purpose, it is not so different from looking and noticing a place in the moment that translates the act of seeing, so that the design process can begin. To consider the documenting gaze that structures elements and designs a system. Accepting a composition of fragments that come together, interconnect and distinguish themselves. To understand a network of links that helps us grasp the unsettling act of designing a project.

If there is a ‘hand that draws’, supporting one in their research, there is a ‘hand that binds’ the network and entwines all the parts that are captured in a peripheral vision. With this in mind, I relate distinct but complementary documents that build up research _ coexistence _ contemplation _ temporalities. These are research topics that are sometimes sketched out, at other times we convince ourselves that we are close, to the uncertainty of achieving. But always convinced that we are extending what already exists.

COEXISTENCE

Admitting the paradoxical question of the meaning of coexistence in reading the integration of the artifice over the natural, not an uncommon exercise in the discipline of architecture. It leads us to the understanding of the landscape as something that does not end in what is there, in its permanence; an understanding, mutable, of its transformation in continuity. Conceiving the project beyond its place, which nevertheless conceives, drawn beyond its limits. It is in this condition of intensive and transversal reading of the place that one triggers and sneaks in to

AN ISLAND, AN ARCHITECT, A POETICAL APPROACH

Barbara Bogoni

I return to the myths of my own flesh, I will surely sing as if there was joy. Same is the island, hot From its ancient milk. Ah, old allegory Renewed! This rolled pebble, this salt this harmony from the nostrils with the indicated miracle!

Herberto Helder, 2011

Any research carried out on Paulo David’s work and oeuvre cannot fail to take into account certain aspects that we can define as “invariants” of the discipline of design and that participate in the process of conception and realisation of the architectural work. They are aspects of such originality, in the specific and subjective declination that the architect has elaborated and entrusted to them, that they are recognised as very personal working tools that he uses in his thinking, in his design approach and also in the construction stage. These are personal invariants: the attention to the place and the specific Madeiran context, the search for totality and the intimate cohesion between architecture and landscape, the use of history and tradition as material and conceptual principles of contemporary design and, finally, the cultured application of technique and geometry learnt during the years of training in Portuguese culture and architecture. To the latter, to its products and protagonists, Paulo David always turns to untangle the knots of design: his strongest references – which represent the source

of the suggestions and stimuli that drive the research, and are used as tools that help define the project – are always the works of his masters, the excellence of Álvaro Siza Vieira, the coherence of Eduardo Souto de Moura, the precision of João Luís Carrilho da Graça, the rigour of Gonçalo Byrne, the sculpturality of Aires Mateus... A chorus of thoughts and projects that find their synthesis in the unity of intentions and in the cohesion of the cultural landscape that we know as “Contemporary Portuguese Architecture”. Paulo David participates in the definition of this cultural landscape with a strongly identifying contribution, working with a methodological structure and a notebook of signs which, while belonging to and fully recognising “Portugueseness”, also express their own autonomy and characterisation, derived from the specificity of the cultural, environmental and human experience of the context closest to Paulo David, the one with which he has the most stable relationship: the island of Madeira, a geographically remote place and a territory characterised by stark contrasts, which counters the architect’s ambition to imagine a new and contemporary way of living and inhabiting space with all the uncertainties, criticalities and the indeterminacy of a place constantly forged by powerful telluric and meteoric forces. Paulo David identifies the strategy (which is also his special aptitude) of fusing construction and landscape and harnessing the energy and drama of nature in the architectural project to “create” an architecture that only takes into account what is there, what exists and what characterises the nature of places, and that transforms them, without distorting their nature with a strong sense of reality, finding out what they can become and what they can be transformed into by nature and human intervention. In other words, the project to house humans –architecture, artifice – must start from nature and return to it, without trying to go against its flow.

It is therefore understandable that Paulo David’s “Portugueseness” still and always resides in his profound attention to the place. This specificity translates into the passionate, systematic and increasingly detailed study of tangible reality, produced by time and history, tempered by nature and refined by man, his culture and his sensitivity[01]. The outcome of this study is patiently archived in thousands of photographs and a few dozen signs, many suggestions, images and ideas, and in very few, very clear and radical compositional, material and figurative choices.

The Architect. Paulo David[02], a Lusitanian architect from Funchal, capital of the archipelago and island of Madeira, is one of the most prestigious figures of contemporary Portuguese architecture. He lives and works “on the boundary”, passionately pursuing theoretical and project research of wide international interest, in a marginal and remote place, on a volcanic island, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far from the media circus, thousands of kilometres away from the capitals of

Portuguese culture and economy, to which the architect owes so much for education and affinity. He addresses the themes of architectural design with a unified cross–cutting programme, addressing matter, tradition, innovation, poetry and tension, and fusing them intimately with the founding principles of the local building tradition and the disruptive impetus of the “sublime” of this land and ocean. With his work, he achieves that serene calm and rigour that can be recognised in an appropriate, pertinent and authentic architectural work, an interpreter of a universally shared contemporaneity and, at the same time, of a strongly marked local context. Thus, his architecture sinks into the earth, allows itself to be permeated and eroded by it, until it itself becomes earth, rock, ocean, landscape: in the end, it is simply landscape. This declaration of intent represents a timely reminder that, even today, in the communicative and technical contexts of the digital and virtual, architecture can be calm, serene, lyrical, powerful and “unspectacular”, that it can simultaneously respect and respond to the suggestions aroused by history, time, place culture and technology (“There is always a way to build the contemporary in moderation and with a strong relationship with the place”), that can interpret not so much the profound relationship with the place – which in many fortunate cases architecture achieves in harmony, continuity and dialogue – as a much more intense, total and osmotic transfiguration in the place.

This work of courageous and compelling synthesis of tradition and innovation, at once local and universal, won him the Alvar Aalto Medal for Architecture awarded by the Finnish Association of Architects in 2012, recognising his masterful contribution to contemporary architecture through his “compelling synthesis of contemporary and traditional architecture, for his ability to create timeless architecture, playing a significant role on his native island of Madeira. Paulo David’s respect for history, time, space, culture and technology allowed him to challenge the trend of ‘desperately interesting architecture’ and create a new image of Madeira’s historic volcanic landscapes”[03] .

The Island. It is not possible to know and understand Paulo David’s architecture (and Paulo David himself, for that matter) without knowing and understanding the characteristics of the place where he lives and works. And this apparently ordinary and obvious need, although true and valid for every architect in relation to his/her architecture and his/ her context, reveals itself to be indispensable in the case of Paulo David, who establishes a very special relationship with his very special land. Madeira is a gigantic accumulator of potential kinetic energy, generated by mighty spontaneous wind, gravitational, electrical, thermal, chemical, and physical forces, the manifestations of which have produced, over time, rugged and voluptuous territories, tough and durable materials, tenacious and courageous architecture; a uniform and constant system

CONTINUITY AS THOUGHT, PATHWAY, PROJECT. ARCHITECTURE AS LANDSCAPE

Barbara Bogoni

I am Island Dwelling in a blue Atlantic that conveys me the sweetness–rage of the sea

I am, in short, the root of the earth with the restlessness of the universality of the world.

of being by being because only in this way I am by being

João Carlos Abreu, Circulo, 2001[01]

Continuity. “O espirito da continuidade”, the Spirit of Continuity, is inherent to Portuguese architecture, all Portuguese architecture is imbued with it. It consists in the interest of the Lusitanian gaze in the intertwining of traditions and current affairs that constitute Portugal’s cultural heritage and translates into a passionate and non–nostalgic search for its origins, in order to find in them the reasons for its own future development.

The first evidence of this approach was the primal and relevant operation of the methodical survey and interpretation focused on the Portuguese built heritage, the so-titled Inquérito à Arquitectura Popular

em Portugal [Survey about Popular Architecture in Portugal], published in 1961.

Promoted by Portuguese Government with the declared nationalistic purpose of definitively establishing the canon of Portuguese vernacular identity, the Inquérito, under the supervision of Francisco Keil do Amaral, turned into an "experience of field research": a systematic work, extended to the whole territory of continental Portugal, that had the unexpected outcome of showing the diversity and richness in minor architecture and that counted on the activity of Fernando Távora as the coordinator of the survey in the North of the country.

The survey highlighted the founding criteria of rural construction, shed light on the reasons for long–established building practices, and interpreted the functional clarity of rural buildings and their close correlation with geographical and climatic factors as well as economic and social contextual conditions. It explicitly stated that “from the study of popular production one can and should draw lessons of coherence, honesty, ingenuity, economy, functionality, beauty [...], which can contribute greatly to the training of an architect”.

In line with these principles, Paulo David’s architecture is an ode to continuity, the method and objective of all design research, which can be read at different levels and in different fields:

continuity as a sign, which, expressed in particular by the specific interest in the continuous design of the cross and longitudinal sections – which represent extraordinary opportunities for environmental control and interpret well the designer’s intentions and the osmotic nature of the project – brings together in a single strand land and building, architecture and landscape, topographical configuration and structural, distributive and spatial systems. It re–establishes the boundary between architecture and landscape, both united in a single line, in an indivisible unity. The pure line, engraved in black on white, unfolds seamlessly and expresses the osmosis between nature and architecture in a single key, associating the maximum abstraction of thought with the maximum abstraction of sign, which is minimalist, essential, absolute. Such a sign succeeds in sculpting the very strong boundary between the antinomies of inside and outside and, at the same time, manages to annul any transition in the immaterial distance of the line. In the uniqueness of his graphic sign, Paulo David thus achieves a synthesis between stone masses and habitable space, between density and rarefaction, between earth and air, in general between Architecture and Nature; a special variation of the theme is the research on the Continuity of Matter, which is explicitly found in the practice of constructing three–dimensional maquettes, always single–material, monochrome and strictly abstract, to which Paulo David

entrusts the task of communicating his tendency towards the fusion of landscape and architecture, a single material essence and a single plastic manifestation. Drawing and the principle of sculpturality are thus not only instruments of representation, but above all means of expressing the poetics of continuity; historical continuity, which can be seen in the project’s constant reference to the building techniques and typologies of the insular tradition, understood in their structural characteristics and in the models of use of space consolidated by time and rooted in humans, and also in the critical use of the “ancient matter” – the buildings, materials and building techniques of the past – which is recomposed, reshaped, brought back to life in a new form, and, finally, in the attention to respecting the natural, closed and inviolable cycle of production of building materials, an attention that the island teaches us to practise on a daily basis; figurative continuity is evident in the construction of the buildings, in the intimate and never mimetic union of the architecture with its context, which is practised through recognisable and coherent grafts rather than through substitutions or amalgamations. The landscape, a place of tensions and conflicts that are never resolved, uncontrollable and constantly evolving, ancient and original, as Nuno Crespo defines them in his fine introductory essay to the Paulo David[02]exhibition, manifests itself in the present as in the past, it is continually transformed by the architect’s gesture, who in constructing spaces to be inhabited and in attempting to attribute meaning and value to them, tries to resolve the unstable balance between the abstract idea and the real, tangible construction. The landscape is, in Paulo David’s vision, open and available to the synthesis of thought and nature, to overcome the resistance of the latter to humans’ desire for order and ambition to impose a form on reality.

Finally, there is a special interpretation of the theme in the continuity applied to personal and student training, which Paulo demonstrates in the gradualness, learned through experience, that he successfully applies to university teaching: “If I had not moved on from the design of small spaces, from the design of small houses, of rooms, I would not have been able to construct and design large and complex buildings: this is what I mean by continuity in the architect’s training”[03]. But the common thread linking the project experiences in an incremental continuum of complexity should not be attributed so much to the larger size of the building or the greater number of functions included in the programme, but rather to a greater integration of the time variable, which involves aspects that are difficult to control, related more to issues of transfiguration than to those of transformation.

“I look for a new humanity in the project, which lies in humankind’s need to experience the continuity of the flow of time and integration with place”[04]. The search for continuity thus moves from listening to the place to dissolving into the place, so that architecture becomes place. It is,

building material, but as an identity that embodies the ruggedness and drama of Madeira’s landscape. It not only characterises the mountainous image of the island, the peaks, the cliffs, variegating with the greyish, reddish and pinkish tones of the oxidised materials[20], and articulating itself in the most rugged or mellifluous forms in relation to the speed with which the lava flows cooled, but also covers the oceanic depths of the entire archipelago[21] and, finally, identifies the image of the island constructions. It is indebted to the techniques and materials of the living tradition and interprets the lengthy time and great effort of sedimentation and construction in stone, the millenary action of depositing and stratifying the material, the human action of building walls and agricultural terraces, built on the rocky slopes with inhuman effort.

Architecturelandscape. At the end of the design process, when time settles in and the vegetation takes root, the metamorphosis is complete, the architecture becomes an intimate part of the landscape.

“Architecturelandscape” is a new entity, simultaneously containing geography, territory, history, culture, tradition, construction, space, humankind. As Nuno Crespo points out in the exhibition Landscape as Architecture. Paulo David and João Gomes da Silva he curated in 2015, Paulo David’s projects are “ways of understanding the world, interpreting the territory and thinking about history, architectures that not only seek to impose objects on the world but live in a kind of intrigue between human construction (rational, logical, geometric) and the spontaneity of nature (irrational and sensual)”.[22] And they are manifestations of their need to belong to the place and to be proponents of its evolution, far from the practice of formal and technological invention or any desire for linguistic self–assertion and self–celebration, produced by the mediation between an abstract and minimalist poetics and the variety and complexity of the natural and anthropic elements that constitute its universe of reference.

Thus, Paulo David’s buildings look like “millennial objects”, sedimentations and rock concretions, a necessary consequence of the evolution of natural events, and perhaps they are: “timeless objects” that simultaneously contain past, present and future history in the roughness of their basalt surfaces, in their dizzying landscape location, but above all in the intense relationships they establish with what exists near them, or dynamically transforms around them, or hides in the earth beneath their foundations. They are interpreters of a revelation, of the expression of an architecture that has always existed, and that Paulo David feels as a necessity, as a personal need to recompose in a unity of form, matter and place, in the folds of the landscape.

[02] Nuno Crespo (ed.), Paisagem como arcquitectura, Critical essay on the exhibition Landscape as architecture. Paulo David and João Gomes da Silva, edited by Nuno Crespo, Centro Cultural de Bélem, Lisbon 2015.

[03] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[04] Paulo David, dialogues with the author, 2021.

[05] Emanuele Coccia, La vita delle piante. Metafisica della mescolanza, Il Mulino, Bologna 2018. “Identifying nature and cosmos means, first of all, making nature not a separate principle, but that which finds expression in everything that is. Inversely, the world is not the logical ensemble of all objects, nor a metaphysical totality of beings, but the physical force that runs through everything that is generated and transformed. There is no separation between matter and the immaterial, history and physics”.

[06] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[07] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[08] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[09] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[10] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[11] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[12] Paulo David’s project complements the exhibition spaces created in a pre–existing building, known since time immemorial as the “House of the Mutes” (the story, perhaps legendary, has it that two mute sisters were born there), which lent its name to the place and title to the museum, permeating them with a certain aura of mystery and curiosity.

[13] See: Albano Figueiredo, Calheta. Patrimonio Natural. Natural Patrimony, Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2008.

[14] Paulo David, conversations with the author, 2021.

[15] This character of Paulo David’s poetics is also influenced by the architectural experiments on the relationships between solid and void, matter and space by the Aires Mateus brothers, and by the suggestions produced by the sculptural works of Eduardo Chillida.

[16] Cf: Arquitetura como paisagem. Un’indagine sulla poetica di Paulo David, Three–year degree thesis by Matteo Ferrari, Supervisor Prof. Barbara Bogoni, Laurea Programme (eq. to Bachelor of Science) in Architectural Design, School of Architecture, Urban Planning Construction Engineering (AUIC), Mantova Campus of the Politecnico di Milano, 2019.

[17] Cf: Arquitetura como paisagem. Un’indagine sulla poetica di Paulo David, Three–year degree thesis by Matteo Ferrari, Supervisor Prof. Barbara Bogoni, Laurea Programme (eq. to Bachelor of Science) in Architectural Design, School of Architecture, Urban Planning Construction Engineering (AUIC), Mantova Campus of the Politecnico di Milano, 2019.

[18] Cf: Arquitetura como paisagem. Un’indagine sulla poetica di Paulo David, Three–year degree thesis by Matteo Ferrari, Supervisor Prof. Barbara Bogoni, Laurea Programme (eq. to Bachelor of Science) in Architectural Design, School of Architecture, Urban Planning Construction Engineering (AUIC), Mantova Campus of the Politecnico di Milano, 2019.

[19] The levadas are a system of canals and gullies that collect rainwater from the highest peaks of the mountains, transport it to the valley and distribute it widely to the agricultural terraces, down to the plains.

[20] Davide Baioni, Manuel Domingos Rodrigues, “I geositi dell’isola di Madeira: tra richiamo turistico e pericolo geologico”, in: Geologia dell’Ambiente, 1/2010, Alatri 2010, p. 22.

[21] The topic was investigated by Lisa Mazzi in her three–year degree thesis, Materia: incontro tra progetto e luogo, Supervisor Prof. Barbara Bogoni, Laurea Programme (eq. to Bachelor of Science) in Architectural Design, School of Architecture, Urban Planning Construction Engineering (AUIC), Mantova Campus of the Politecnico di Milano, 2021. The thesis investigates the relationship between the architectural project and its context of reference, in examples of architecture built on islands of volcanic origin, focusing on the process of transformation of the stone material, which is the same process by which the architecture of these places takes shape.

[22] Nuno Crespo, Landscape as architecture. Paulo David and João Gomes da Silva, edited by Nuno Crespo, Centro Culturale de Bélem, Lisbon 2015.

ICONOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE ARCHIVIO ICONOGRAFICO

Federica Felici

IMG 01

Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Madeira (Mudas)

Profile Sezione

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Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Madeira (Mudas)

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Casa na Calheta, Madeira Profile Sezione

IMG 23

Casa na Calheta, Madeira Maquette Modello tridimensionale

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Casa na Calheta, Madeira Croquis Schizzo

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Casa na Calheta, Madeira Maquette Modello tridimensionale

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Casa Funchal VI, Madeira Maquette Modello tridimensionale

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Casa Funchal VI, Madeira Maquette Modello tridimensionale

Costa norte, Madeira

BIOGRAPHICAL DIGRESSIONS

Federica Felici

It is possible to perceive, as one enters his atelier, that a refined atmosphere exists in it, almost designed in its dominated disorder, setting the scenery in which Paulo David works every day. A place suspended between practice and research, memory and intuition.

A vast archive of models organises the space of one of the two large aisles of his current studio, opening up in front of those who enter as a large exhibition, reference and materialisation of the thoughts that cross this place.

It is part of the theoretical investigation, like a palimpsest that synchronously displays the concepts underlaying each project; physical objects are juxtaposed, so that ideas and themes can be constantly revisited, re–read and possibly open to new interpretations.

Walking through the archive, Paulo pauses to reflect on some models, especially those of the unbuilt projects, which I imagine being the ones closer to him, perhaps because of their uniqueness in being able to convey an otherwise intangible idea; he mentions the effort made by each of his collaborators to make the maquettes of the international competitions and the unrest of the studio during these hectic moments before deadlines; the flawless hand of some in realising, almost with mechanical precision, ambitious topographical representations. He weighs in his hands the plaster or concrete models, which convey a dense materiality, a prelude to the built work.

He says that his fascination and passion for Architecture originated in his school days, during the manual work classes led by Master Franscisco Simões, who transmitted his students the culture of working with matter:

ELOGIO Paulo David

Nell’atto della progettazione si orientano scelte, si prendono decisioni, si disegnano essenzialmente possibilità di vita. Questo atto di comprensione e conoscenza si investe di intense partecipazioni che, poco a poco, diventano cruciali e che mi permettono, adesso, di mostrarmi nel ruolo di chi pronuncia um elogio.

Comporre un elogio rappresenta e significa il compimento di un dovere di amicizia, la celebrazione dell’incontro con ciò che incanta e che mi ha segnato direttamente o indirettamente.

L’elogio stabilisce vincoli, tanto più forti quanto maggiore è la distanza, che contempla e accoglie tutti coloro che partecipano, come costellazione, nelle nostre costruzioni.

La “matita nella mano” realizza e costruisce la nostra scrittura; l’elogio, come una mano, è un terreno che mette radici, um alimento che dà corpo.

Federica Felici

BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAFIA

MONOGRAPHS

Matteo Agnoletto, Paulo David, Libria, Melfi, Italy, 2012.

2G, Revista International de Arquitectura, n. 47 Paulo David, Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 2008 (Gonçalo Byrne "La arquitectura de Paulo David. Un archipiélago de pensamientos” pp. 4-7; Emilio Tuñon “Geografía como cuerpo y arquitectura como geografía”, pp. 8-13; João Gomes da Silva “Paulo David: la arquitectura del mundo em cada lugar”, pp. 68-71).

Fernando Guerra, Centro de Artes Casa das Mudas I 03 I Paulo David, FG+SG – Livros de imagem, Lisboa 2006 (Ana Vaz Milheiro “High Cliff – part II“ pp. 92-97; José Mateus “Casa das Mudas” pp. 98-99; Alexandre Melo “Large scale” pp. 8-11).

CRITICS

Barbara Bogoni, “Paulo David. Dwelling on the Land-sea Threshold: Circular Architecture”, in Luigi Spinelli (edited by), “Layers of Contemporary Architecture”, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2021, pp.12-37.

Marie-Hélene Contal, “Paulo David” in “Global Award for Sustainable Architecture”, Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine, 2017, pp. 36-42.

José Tolentino Mendonça, “Saber ouvir os lugares” in “Expresso”, Impresa, Lisboa, Portugal, 2014.

Arturo Franco, “En el Valle de Los Amores”, in Newspaper “ABC” –Arquitetura y Diseño, Madrid 2010, pp. 48-49.

Manuel Aires Mateus, “Abstracto, furtivo e dívico”, in “+ Arquitectura 09” Arcatura, Lisboa 01/2007, p. 53.

BOOKS AND MAGAZINES

Nobuaki Tanaka, “Centro de Artes Casa das Mudas” in “Detail” n. 230, Shokokusha publishing, Tokio 09.2021, pp. 81-88.

Nobuyuki Yoshida, “Paulo David. Casa Funchal V. Casa Funchal VI” in “A+U. Architecture and Urbanism” (Beginning with the house), A+U Publishing, Tokio 05.2016, pp. 200-203.

Nobuyuki Yoshida, “Paulo David – Casa das Mudas” in “A+U. Architecture and Urbanism” n. 520 “Architecture in Spain and Portugal”, A+U Publishing, Tokio Janeiro 2014, 94-97.

Nobuyuki Yoshida, “Paulo David” in “A+U. Architecture and Urbanism” n. 486, (50 Architect’s Offices), A+U Publishing, Tokio 2011, p. 130.

Carlotta Tonon, “La memoria dei movimenti telluric. Paulo David, padiglione e ingresso al vulcano São Vicente, Madeira”, in Casabella 774, Mondadori, Milano 02/2009, pp. 80-87.

Carlotta Tonon, “IIl nero atlantico. Paulo David, casa a Funchal, Madeira”, in Casabella 765, Mondadori, Milano 04/2008, pp. 41-47.

Margarida Ventosa, “Paulo David – Centro de Artes Casa das Mudas”, “Paulo David – Restaurante e Piscinas das Salinas”, “Paulo David – Casa Funchal V” in “ArqA” n. 50 (Paisagens Sintécticas), Futur Magazine, Lisboa 10/2007, pp. 32-39, 40-45, 46-48.

Alice Perugini, “Casa das Mudas” in “Casabella” 758, Mondadori, Milano 09/2007, pp. 68-77.

Luis Fernández-Galiano, “Baños de Lava – Piscinas y Paseo marítimo, Câmara de Lobos” in “Arquitectura Viva” n.113, Madrid 2007, pp. 38-45.

Jea Hong Lee, “Paulo David. Arts Centre Casa das Mudas” in “Even . Odd”, C3 Design, Korea 2006, pp. 312-351. “1000 x European Architecture”, Verlagshaus Braun, Berlin 12/2006, p. 203.

Luis Fernández Galiano, “Puro Horizonte – Centro de Arte Casa das Mudas” in “Arquitectura Viva”, n.109, Madrid 2006, pp. 38-43.

Daniel Kurz, “Topografia ist mein Thema” in “Werk, Bauen + Wohnen” n. 7-8/2006, Wek AG, Zurich, 09/ 2006, pp. 51-57.

CREDITS CREDITI

Elena Montanari

Francesco Cancelliere

Ricardo Carvalho

Federica Felici

Federico Bucci

COLLECTION

Pocket Books

SERIES

Architecture in Theory and History

VOLUME

PB 05

TITLE

Paulo David.

The lesson of the continuity. La lezione della continuità

AUTHOR Barbara Bogoni

COLLECTION CONCEPT

Tomás Lobo

PUBLISHER

AMAG publisher

EDITOR Ana Leal

EDITORIAL TEAM

Filipa Ferreira

João Soares

TRANSLATIONS

Studio Moretto, Milano

Francesco Cancelliere, Porto

Federica Felici, Funchal

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Federico Bucci, professor of politecnico di milano

Emilio Faroldi, professor of politecnico di milano

Andrew Berman, architect in new york

Luigi Spinelli, professor of politecnico di milano

José Manuel Pedreirinho, architect phd in lisbon

Eduardo Souto de Moura, architect phd in lisbon

PRINTING lusoimpress

LEGAL DEPOSIT

475406/20

ISBN 978-989-53906-7-0

PUBLICATION DATE September 2023

RUN NUMBER

1000 numbered copies

OWNER AMAG publisher

VAT NUMBER 513 818 367

CONTACT hello@amagpublisher.com

This short book is a brief introduction to the principles underpinning the work of Madeiran architect Paulo David in the field of architecture and landscape. On the thin line between land and ocean, in a dialogue with Nature and with his personal tension towards an Architecture imbued with meaning and place, his contribution to culture and architectural construction is an ode to continuity, method and objective of every design gesture.

Paulo David founded his atelier Paulo David Arquitectos, in Funchal in 1996. He is professor in the AUIC School of Urban Architecture and Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, at the Mantova campus, since 2016 and and Guest Associate Professor in the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal since 2019. He was honoured with the attribution of career prizes, as the Alvar Aalto Medal in 2012 and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2017, and since 2022 is foreign member of the Académie d’Architecture in Paris. Besides his activity as an architect, Paulo David founded and cocoordinated the atelier for urban studies “Gabinete da

Questo piccolo libro è una breve introduzione ai principi che stanno alla base del lavoro dell’architetto madeirense Paulo David nel campo dell'architettura e del paesaggio. Sulla sottile linea di confine tra terra e oceano, in dialogo con la natura e con la sua personale tensione verso un'architettura intrisa di significato e di luogo, il suo contributo alla cultura e alla costruzione architettonica è un'ode alla continuità, metodo e obiettivo di ogni gesto progettuale.

Paulo David fonda il proprio atelier Paulo David Arquitectos, a Funchal nel 1996. Dal 2016 è professore presso la Scuola AUIC di Architettura Urbanistica e Ingegneria delle Costruzioni del Politecnico di Milano, nel Polo di Mantova e, dal 2019, Professore Associato a Contratto presso l'Istituto Superior Tecnico di Lisbona, Portogallo. È stato insignito di premi alla carriera come la Medaglia Alvar Aalto nel 2012 e il Global Award for Sustainable Architecture nel 2017, e a partire dal 2022 è membro straniero della Académie d’Architecture di Parigi. Oltre alla sua attività di architetto, Paulo David è stato fondatore e co-coordinatore dell’atelier di studi urbani “Gabinete da Cidade”, attivato a seguito dei

Cidade”, as a result of the major fires in Madeira in the summer of 2016, to classify the damages and plan the rehabilitation of the territory affected by the tragic event.

Barbara Bogoni, Phd in Interior Architecture and Assistant Professor Full time in Architectural and Urban Design, she conducts research in the Dastu Department of the Politecnico di Milano and teaches architectural design in the AUIC School of Urban Architecture and Construction Engineering, at the Mantova campus, where she has collaborated with Eduardo Souto de Moura and Paulo David. Her extensive publications on Portuguese architecture includes: A scuola con Eduardo Souto de Moura, Franco Angeli 2017; Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura. A dialogue on Architecture and Memory, in Commentaries on 21st century buildings, Franco Angeli 2020; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Learning from History. Designing into History, Amag 2020; Paulo David. Dwelling on the Land-sea Thresold: “Circular” Architecture, in Layers of Contemporary Architecture, Franco Angeli 2021; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Architettura sulla storia, Tre Lune 2022.

devastanti incendi a Madeira nell’estate del 2016, per catalogare i danni e pianificare la riabilitazione del territorio interessato dalla catastrofe.

Barbara Bogoni, Phd in Architettura degli Interni e Professore Associato in Progettazione Architettonica e Urbana, svolge attività di ricerca nel Dipartimento Dastu del Politecnico di Milano e insegna progettazione architettonica nella Scuola AUIC di Architettura Urbanistica e Ingegneria delle Costruzioni, presso il Polo di Mantova, dove ha collaborato con Eduardo Souto de Moura e con Paulo David. Tra le sue pubblicazioni sull’architettura portoghese, si segnalano: A scuola con Eduardo Souto de Moura, Franco Angeli 2017; Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura. A dialogue on Architecture and Memory, in Commentaries on 21st century buildings, Franco Angeli 2020; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Learning from History. Designing into History, Amag 2020; Paulo David. Dwelling on the Land-sea Thresold: “Circular” Architecture, in Layers of Contemporary Architecture, Franco Angeli 2021; Eduardo Souto de Moura. Architettura sulla storia, Tre Lune 2022.