I want to give here voice to some points in the current relation of autism between the world of the architects, the state of the territory and the deciding power, ruling class in Portugal. To this effort joined as subscribers *, critics and other architects, designers, creatives, journalists and writers.
1- For the last two years the professional Order defends a real pretension of the architects in returning the practice to the practitioners. In 1973 due to permit (it would exist about 500 in Portugal) a law was approved that allowed non architects as engineers, draftsmen, etc, to sign projects. The Country needed construction of new habitation as much as freedom, as urgently as democracy. However this law, foreseen as transitory, faced of the habitual difficulties, lost all the sense today.
2. In the last ten years the number of habitations has duplicated, being today the available average in the market of 2 for family. There had been constructed more in 10 years (by real estate developers with signature of draftsmen) than the ones we inherited in 10 centuries of history. The reality of the facts and the numbers disclose 30 years that transformed Portugal into a uniform nightmare suburbia of the third-world. And also exists a myriad roll of architecture schools that every year launch literally hundreds of youngsters for the unemployment. The decree-law of 73/73 is therefore today unbearable and must be revoked to allow the return to the architects its fair function.
3- It is bound to the architects the pretension to change this law. However these have had the abandonment of the voices that could have weight, such as the long times of rest between the political intentions already revealed. The Professional Association and the architects fighting on this with constance and hardship are still lawfully in 1973, against the proper will and the necessities of the country. It attends the Portuguese society the right to a civilized architecture and urbanity. The political class in repetition asks for the envolvement and responsibility by the civil society. Here we are, architects and non-architects.
4- I apeal here to the responsible coprporations, the Ministers of Order of Territory and Public works as well as the Secretaries of State of Habitation and Public works. Two years ago by request of the Association Dr. Freitas of the Amaral gave a favorable judicial opinion to the alteration of this law. Today you are Foreign Affairs Minister. Show us with the responsibility of power what by words was said then. To return the practice of architecture to the architects is to create the conditions for the end of the almost "civil war" that on these years has destroyed the domestic territory and created ghettos of peripheries while the centers were left empty with the historical heritage of the habitacional park left to rotten.
5- I apeal equally to the President of the Republic. To the current one and the next one. This is a problem of national order, surpasses petty or professional interests. We witness in each hour that passes to the destruction of the Country because the majority of the architects that, as I, professionally try to act, become distanced of what they had studied for. By the same order of reasons there would be ambulance drivers operating surgery in hospitals or in the courts private security guards with the gown and the hammer sentencing. As such, this is your fight, mister President, as a design of the identity of this nation. In all the other civilized states the architecture is one of the founding forces of the nation. In Portugal it continues a lesser son, the brave individuals being awarded prizes, and left to themselves those who are the body of the profession, the young, the architects of the local councils, the ones that venture to open office, without chance or desire of entering academia, alone in the desert of the mined commitments. The ones that simply try to honor their will and their destiny.
6- I apeal here to the Portuguese Parliament. To the diverse parties as well as the presidency of the Assembly. It is also the patrimony of each one of you that is here in cause. The integrity and national identity of the constructed heritage. It's what we leave more directly to the generations of Portuguese to come. We aspire that you do not long to leave as the memory of the beginning of XXI Century this current wilderness bravado of Insanity.
7- The Architects Association looks for this concertation with persistence, being the people in charge professionally of the representation of all its associates. However the exterior reality is less infused with lucidity. It has external games, interests of other professions, has dead times spare of the moral order here in lack that agree to these. I expect that the new board leave as legacy of this legislature the resolution of this problem already fought by all the previous ones. The President of the Association, Helena Roseta, is an experimented politician and sharing the corridors of power already obtained of the Parliament an approval of this intention. Let's hope architects find their craft finally. In contrary it might remain in stagnation the obscure reality and difficulty of who does real architecture in the real country. Thousand of lost people with degrees in the ocean of eye-for-an-eye of project signatures and one horrend constructed country, peripheral of the world.
8- The Portuguese architecture has many generations that never wanted nor want to face away from the true problems of this Country. They have the proper maturity, courage, ideias and the talent to make it. They are ready for the responsibilities that they must be credited upon. All the students of architecture of this country a have right to a future. I finally appeal direct and mainly to yourself, Mr. Prime-Minister, have the ambition of making them responsible, have the will to open the door to a country with many generations of architects with pride and quality.
Do not waste them.
* Subscribers: Pedro Gadanho, Luís Tavares Pereira, Diogo Seixas Lopes, Pedro Bandeira, Cristina Guedes e Francisco Vieira de Campos (- é +), João Mendes Ribeiro, José Mateus (ARX Potugal), Paulo Martins Barata (Promontório), Desirée Pedro e Carlos Antunes (Atelier do Corvo), Célia Gomes e Pedro M Costa (a.s*), Carlos Santana (S'A), Marcos Cruz (Marcos & Marjan) Paulo André Rodrigues (PAHR!), Susana Ventura, Helena Pinto, Pedro M.A. Silva (P.S.:BF), João Miguel Amaro Correia (hardblog), Tiago Lopes Dias (blog allegronontroppo), Carla Guerra, arquitecta (blog cenáriodeguerra), Alexandre Bettencourt (estudante arq), António Gomes (Barbara Says), Nuno Costa Santos, Paulo Pinto Mascarenhas, Ricardo Fonseca, João Bonifácio, ...
blogs that have reacted and opened debate in the commentaries (the ones that have passed unobserved sffv send mail):
O Acidental
A Tesoura
postHABITAT
HardBlog
arqportugal
P.S.:BF- Oficina de Arquitectura
Xatoo
A Mão Invisível
ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO
Note - This text was written in 2004 by individual impulse by the elections for the Assotiation ofarchitects as personal reminder to the new board of the subject. At the time equally it happened the dissolution of the parliament and fall to it of government. Now, with new interlocutors, and apropos the text of arq. Pedro Gadanho, the quiet generation I remembered and I published it, subscribed by who thus understands it in the context of the democratic state of right.
Porto, 26/9/2005
1- For the last two years the professional Order defends a real pretension of the architects in returning the practice to the practitioners. In 1973 due to permit (it would exist about 500 in Portugal) a law was approved that allowed non architects as engineers, draftsmen, etc, to sign projects. The Country needed construction of new habitation as much as freedom, as urgently as democracy. However this law, foreseen as transitory, faced of the habitual difficulties, lost all the sense today.
2. In the last ten years the number of habitations has duplicated, being today the available average in the market of 2 for family. There had been constructed more in 10 years (by real estate developers with signature of draftsmen) than the ones we inherited in 10 centuries of history. The reality of the facts and the numbers disclose 30 years that transformed Portugal into a uniform nightmare suburbia of the third-world. And also exists a myriad roll of architecture schools that every year launch literally hundreds of youngsters for the unemployment. The decree-law of 73/73 is therefore today unbearable and must be revoked to allow the return to the architects its fair function.
3- It is bound to the architects the pretension to change this law. However these have had the abandonment of the voices that could have weight, such as the long times of rest between the political intentions already revealed. The Professional Association and the architects fighting on this with constance and hardship are still lawfully in 1973, against the proper will and the necessities of the country. It attends the Portuguese society the right to a civilized architecture and urbanity. The political class in repetition asks for the envolvement and responsibility by the civil society. Here we are, architects and non-architects.
4- I apeal here to the responsible coprporations, the Ministers of Order of Territory and Public works as well as the Secretaries of State of Habitation and Public works. Two years ago by request of the Association Dr. Freitas of the Amaral gave a favorable judicial opinion to the alteration of this law. Today you are Foreign Affairs Minister. Show us with the responsibility of power what by words was said then. To return the practice of architecture to the architects is to create the conditions for the end of the almost "civil war" that on these years has destroyed the domestic territory and created ghettos of peripheries while the centers were left empty with the historical heritage of the habitacional park left to rotten.
5- I apeal equally to the President of the Republic. To the current one and the next one. This is a problem of national order, surpasses petty or professional interests. We witness in each hour that passes to the destruction of the Country because the majority of the architects that, as I, professionally try to act, become distanced of what they had studied for. By the same order of reasons there would be ambulance drivers operating surgery in hospitals or in the courts private security guards with the gown and the hammer sentencing. As such, this is your fight, mister President, as a design of the identity of this nation. In all the other civilized states the architecture is one of the founding forces of the nation. In Portugal it continues a lesser son, the brave individuals being awarded prizes, and left to themselves those who are the body of the profession, the young, the architects of the local councils, the ones that venture to open office, without chance or desire of entering academia, alone in the desert of the mined commitments. The ones that simply try to honor their will and their destiny.
6- I apeal here to the Portuguese Parliament. To the diverse parties as well as the presidency of the Assembly. It is also the patrimony of each one of you that is here in cause. The integrity and national identity of the constructed heritage. It's what we leave more directly to the generations of Portuguese to come. We aspire that you do not long to leave as the memory of the beginning of XXI Century this current wilderness bravado of Insanity.
7- The Architects Association looks for this concertation with persistence, being the people in charge professionally of the representation of all its associates. However the exterior reality is less infused with lucidity. It has external games, interests of other professions, has dead times spare of the moral order here in lack that agree to these. I expect that the new board leave as legacy of this legislature the resolution of this problem already fought by all the previous ones. The President of the Association, Helena Roseta, is an experimented politician and sharing the corridors of power already obtained of the Parliament an approval of this intention. Let's hope architects find their craft finally. In contrary it might remain in stagnation the obscure reality and difficulty of who does real architecture in the real country. Thousand of lost people with degrees in the ocean of eye-for-an-eye of project signatures and one horrend constructed country, peripheral of the world.
8- The Portuguese architecture has many generations that never wanted nor want to face away from the true problems of this Country. They have the proper maturity, courage, ideias and the talent to make it. They are ready for the responsibilities that they must be credited upon. All the students of architecture of this country a have right to a future. I finally appeal direct and mainly to yourself, Mr. Prime-Minister, have the ambition of making them responsible, have the will to open the door to a country with many generations of architects with pride and quality.
Do not waste them.
* Subscribers: Pedro Gadanho, Luís Tavares Pereira, Diogo Seixas Lopes, Pedro Bandeira, Cristina Guedes e Francisco Vieira de Campos (- é +), João Mendes Ribeiro, José Mateus (ARX Potugal), Paulo Martins Barata (Promontório), Desirée Pedro e Carlos Antunes (Atelier do Corvo), Célia Gomes e Pedro M Costa (a.s*), Carlos Santana (S'A), Marcos Cruz (Marcos & Marjan) Paulo André Rodrigues (PAHR!), Susana Ventura, Helena Pinto, Pedro M.A. Silva (P.S.:BF), João Miguel Amaro Correia (hardblog), Tiago Lopes Dias (blog allegronontroppo), Carla Guerra, arquitecta (blog cenáriodeguerra), Alexandre Bettencourt (estudante arq), António Gomes (Barbara Says), Nuno Costa Santos, Paulo Pinto Mascarenhas, Ricardo Fonseca, João Bonifácio, ...
blogs that have reacted and opened debate in the commentaries (the ones that have passed unobserved sffv send mail):
O Acidental
A Tesoura
postHABITAT
HardBlog
arqportugal
P.S.:BF- Oficina de Arquitectura
Xatoo
A Mão Invisível
ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO
Note - This text was written in 2004 by individual impulse by the elections for the Assotiation ofarchitects as personal reminder to the new board of the subject. At the time equally it happened the dissolution of the parliament and fall to it of government. Now, with new interlocutors, and apropos the text of arq. Pedro Gadanho, the quiet generation I remembered and I published it, subscribed by who thus understands it in the context of the democratic state of right.
Porto, 26/9/2005
posted by Bernardo at 9:13 AM
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