Died the architect Nuno Teotonio Pereira – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         
                     

                         

                 

 
 

The architect Nuno Teotonio Pereira died on Wednesday aged 93, confirmed the source PUBLIC family – have turned 94 on June 30. With a career spanning six decades, was one of the most outstanding personalities of architecture in Portugal – and possibly the last of modern architects . At his studio Street Alegria, Lisbon, spent successive generations the most important Portuguese architects, Gonçalo Byrne Nuno Portas

Your traces are scattered throughout the country:. Church of Waters (1949-57 ) in Penamacor, his first project, built when he was 27, the House Barata dos Santos (1959-63), in Vila Viçosa, already designed in partnership with Nuno Portas, the architect that liked to work as confess an interview of life to the Express . But it is in Lisbon that is the most significant collection of works Teotonio Pereira: Block Free Waters (1953-56) signed with Bartolomeu Costa Cabral; Groves North neighborhood of the towers (1957-67), project coauthored with Nuno Portas and Pinto de Freitas which is still celebrated as one of the best stories of social housing in Portugal; the iconic Franjinhas Building (1965-69) with John Braula Reis; and the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Lisbon, again with Nuno Portas – the last three winners of Valmor prize.

It will be precisely in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which echoed the proposed assembly fan already experienced in Penamacor, that his funeral will take place this Thursday, from 17h. The funeral will take place on the 22th, at 13:30, in the Cemetery of Lumiar.

Author of several articles and papers in the fields of architecture, urban planning, heritage and spatial planning, held also with other progressive Catholics, an unusually active political militancy, especially during the regime Salazar, who opposed the frontal despite having grown up in a conservative family and assigned to the Scheme (and teenager have paraded enthusiastically with the uniform of the Portuguese Youth). Defender history of civil and political rights during the hardest years of the Estado Novo (streamlined clandestine bulletin Right to Information created in 1963 to make the active denunciation of the Colonial War, joined the National Commission for Relief of Prisoners Political formed in late 1969), was one of the mentors and participants of the famous Wake Chapel Rat December 30, 1972, a hunger strike for 48 hours to promote reflection on the Colonial War that the police would eventually stop making several arrests. He himself was repeatedly arrested (and hard tortured) by the PIDE. When he finally gave April 25, 1974, it was indeed for several months in prison in Caxias, from which would be released the day after the revolution .

Already in democracy, he continued its militancy, and also in 1974 been one of the founders (with Jorge Sampaio and Ferro Rodrigues, among others) of the Socialist Left Movement, extinct in 1981.

In his message of condolences he sent to family Nuno Teotonio Pereira, Cavaco Silva recalled it just not only as “one of the greatest Portuguese architects of the twentieth century”, but also as a “militant committed to the defense of freedom before and after the 25 April 1974 “. The President stressed the “remarkable career” along which projected “iconic buildings that fascinate us the strict beauty of your dash,” and their action as “oppositional Catholic” and later, “” defender of the independence of people Africans “:” He fought all his life, with unwavering faith against all forms of oppression, “giving” their best to their country and the cause of human rights around the world “

. Also the Minister of Culture, João Soares, recalled the “largest and innovative figure of Portuguese architecture” and “particularly courageous citizen who has always argued for civil liberties and for a more just society.”

As a Catholic, Nuno Teotonio Pereira was a major driver of the Movement of Renewal of Religious Art (MRAR) The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus -. where they held a tribute on the occasion of its 90 years – classified as a national monument, that’s an example. Designed with Nuno Portas, this project arose following the creation in 1952 of MRAR that were part artists as José Escada, Jorge Vieira, Cargaleiro, Madalena Cabral and Eduardo Nery, and architects as Nuno Portas, Louis Cunha, Diogo Lino Pimentel or Formosinho Sanches.