Your first political experience was at age 14 in the civil war in Spain, in supporting Franco …
is true. I joined a convoy of trucks took stuffs (flour, rice, etc.) for the Nationalists of Franco’s army. We went to Seville where we were housed in the home of aristocrats.
It was the first time he went out of Portugal?
Yes. I returned to Spain even during the civil war, when my Uncle Peter, who was very fond of me, he was appointed by Salazar special agent with the Government of Franco in Burgos. He had a son, Pedrinho (younger than me), and how he thought I was good company invited me several times to go to him to Spain. The diplomatic corps used to spend the holidays in San Sebastián, and in 1938 we were both in the Sud Express there. My uncle received a call from the front of Catalonia, at the time of the Ebro battle – the last major counteroffensive of the republican army – to say who had died two Portuguese official who had volunteered to join the Viriatos. We drove to Zaragoza and then he went to Portugal for the funeral. I returned in 1940, at the height of Hitler’s attack on France. Bordeaux was the consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes and there were many refugees to cross the border. The German army had reached the Pyrenees, and I have photographs of uniformed soldiers strolling on Sunday in San Sebastián as tourists.
Your uncle Pedro had some intervention with refugees?
intervened was with the Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Salazar gave him directions to go to Bordeaux put the consul in order. And it was.
In one of his trips to Spain was accompanied by Inspector Pink Jacket, the PIDE …
I believe it was in 1940 when we came to my uncle, as ambassador in Madrid, in those big Chrysler. The Pink Jacket was the diplomatic courier between Lisbon and Madrid and accompanied us. He sent the driver to stop, out of the car and fired the machine. It was really a great photographer. Never saw him again.
What was your relationship with your uncle? He was the most important figures of Salazar.
I was a teenager, he was very fond of me, and we had a great relationship. Then, our relations were becoming less cordial. He was ambassador most of his life: Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Washington, London … When did the Minister of the Presidency in 1959, almost did not have relations with him. In 1958 there had been elections of Humberto Delgado, and I publicly assumed the opposition to the regime, signing two manifestos.
Did he ever commented on his attitude? Do not
I remember. There was a time when we avoided find us. Before, he was Trade Minister Salazar and thought it was too advanced in social part. Was the one who founded the Sacor to refine oil, and Covina, to produce industrial glass. Then built the neighborhood of Groves, in Lisbon, where he joined buildings constructed by the state, with affordable rents, real estate and private, all mixed to avoid ghettos. Structured Housing Technical Office, with qualified people, a rigorous planning and quality projects. All this was lost.
He was pro-German?
No, I was not. He was right, but English-speaking, personal friend of the British ambassador in Madrid, Samuel Hoare. Worked for Spain remained neutral in World War II, when it was still imminent victory of Hitler.
In 1933, when it was the Constitutional Referendum, he accompanied his father to vote …
father and mother. In the elections in the New State women could only vote if they were heads of families – but women of trusted people, like my mother, also voted. I remember family members go to vote at various sites in Lisbon. It was a complete scam.
It was in uniform?
With a blue shirt that my mother had bought me, equal to the Rolão Black movement, which later turned out to be away by Salazar. In 1936, when the Portuguese Youth was created, entered voluntarily. Participated in the charts Avenida da Liberdade.
met Marcello Caetano?
met. I was a close friend of my grandfather. But I knew him better when he had already left the Portuguese Youth. In 1943 I was part of a group of students organized a series of conferences over Lisbon, with Vitorino Nemesio and the Orlando Ribeiro. We went to the house of Marcello, to patronize the initiative, and he even offered me his book “Why Youth Love,” with a dedication.
Why has joined the national-syndicalism and “blue shirts” from Rolão Black?
I had a very nationalistic education, very right-wing, monarchist and Catholic. My father has always been monarchical. At home too we listened to the radio, and in the end the issue, when he played ‘Portuguesa’, he always hung up the phone because of its monarchical ideas.
During the war were listening to the BBC? Very
. Me-remember well listening to Fernando Pessa. My father was the second of six children, all English speaking, except for an aunt, terribly Nazi.
Let us return to national-syndicalism … I liked
much of Rolão Black. Whenever there was standing, would watch the parades, it would appear two tanks, the ones who were in Portugal: the “Motherland” and the “Republic”. The July 18, 1936, the day the lifting of Franco in Spain, there was a great nationalist rally at Campo Pequeno, of repudiation by Bolshevism. Been there, I was completely full. In 1934 he had also been at the rally Theater of St. Charles, for the creation of national trade unions.
You did not age, but if he’d have would be listed in Viriatos?
does not. Thence to make war went a long way.
Day the day. Teotonio Pereira and his second wife, the Brazilian sculptor Irene Buarque. They met in 1974 and married in 1982. They live in Lisbon, in the house where the architect lived for 63 years. Every day she reads her newspaper. For short wait, anxious, the first great-grandchild
António Pedro Ferreira
He married in 1951. ..
When I got married, I rented a house already in the neighborhood of San Miguel, which is great. I took part in building the neighborhood, because even before finishing the course, I was hired by the House to follow the works of the Alvalade neighborhood and Avenida de Roma. When my second son was diagnosed my wife a heart problem. Our house had no lift and we had to change for this, since with elevator, where I have lived for 63 years.
What did click in your head and caused him to go to challenge the regime?
It was a very gradual thing. During World War II also I studied German, convinced that it was the language of the future. I studied with a fräuline in my father’s house and the Luso-German Institute, which is now the Goethe Institut. The director was a staunch Nazi, who always appeared in uniform on the charts. Entry into college and marriage had much influence. My first wife, Natalia Duarte Silva, was a rebellious person, from left, also the daughter of the bourgeoisie. He had married by civil aged 16, met her in the Pension Fund, where he was secretary, and we started dating. It was agnostic, atheist herself, and divorced. We waited two years required by law so she can marry again. We got married by the Church, but according to a special arrangements for couples where one spouse is not Catholic. It was in the church of Fatima and the priest was my spiritual youth counselor, a Jesuit, who accepted grudgingly, Father John Cabral, who was later a missionary in Timor and built the College of São João de Brito.
However, he had dropped the “h” of Theotónio Pereira …
I thought was very arrogant. Today embirro with the people who preserve the old spelling, prior to the reform of 1911. My father must have been annoyed, but not upset me too.
When he entered Fine Arts until how to dress was different from that of his colleagues, was always really …
I even use felt hat. My uncle Pedro insisted it too much “. A person should be like have to wear a hat”
met the Bishop of Porto, D. António Ferreira Gomes
? I was one of those who received a copy of the letter he wrote to Salazar. He did not become public, but sent it to a lot of friendly people. Then it was unable to enter the country, and I got to go to him to Salamanca. Now Marcello Caetano, we went to him to Lourdes, to tell him not because, exiled, was a flag that we had but we would lose. Not convinced.
From his home in Marvão, helped several people to move to the other side of the border …
Mario Murteira spake unto me one day from the dirt cheap houses that were inside the walls of Marvão, a beautiful village. I was there at the end of next week, in my 4L, and bought a house for eight tales. It is a house of the sixteenth century, small but three floors, with a fabulous view! Not regateei! At one point, a friend of ours came to tell us that there was a student who wanted to escape the colonial war and needed help to cross the border. We offer to help.
How do you do?
Ia I, my wife and my children, we made a kind of picnic, with a knapsack . We left the car on the road and then we would walk by those shortcuts, to a small village on the Spanish side, who owned a store that sold a thing there was in Portugal and was much celebrated: Coca-Cola. Over there was a car that took them to Cáceres, which caught a train to France.
Was connected to the Catholic Action?
No, because it was linked to Jesuits. But of course I knew many of the JUC and especially the JOC: Fr. Manuel da Rocha and Abel Varzim, that influenced me a lot in social issues. Rocha was sent to pastor an Azorean community in the US. The Cherry cardinal was expert at it: the cumbersome priests sent them out there …
Cherry met the cardinal
met?. With a group of architects and artists founded the Religious Art Renewal Movement. The Cherry was doing churches that we considered of outdated style, such as São João de Brito, the Holy Constable and St John of God. We went to him, but always diverted the conversation. He began to talk about other issues, was very wordy and skillful, did not give us the opportunity to talk about what we wanted. We got out of there always upset.
Was Fatima came here when Pope Paul VI in 1967?
I was not deliberately. But I’ve been organizing a petition to Pope repudiating the colonial war that was signed up to by people with responsibilities within the Church, as members of Catholic Action. There were people like Pereira de Moura, who said:. “I sign, but the card can not be disclosed at all, not even the confidence of people” Because of this, the letter was lost. It has never been disclosed, but it was delivered to the secretary of the Pope.
The following year, Paul VI issued the encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, prohibiting the use of contraceptives.
There was a petition of Catholics to protest the encyclical. Father John Cabral, who no longer spoke a few years ago, wrote me to say he had known that I signed and that, for him, it was like I had died! That hardness! Fortunately we then met another Jesuit absolutely the opposite: Father Manuel Antunes, who did great friendship
Was the eve of St. Dominic, in the passage from 1968 to 1969 . I was one of the organizers, as well as Sophia de Mello Breyner, which made the letter of the poem “We see, we hear and we read” – the song was Francisco Fernandes. After Mass, presided over by Cherry, it expressed interest in organizing a vigil; there he said yes, although upset, since the prior also stay. The Correia de Sá canon was all night to police everything, but without success. It was a very large group of over 50 people … When we left at 8 am, there were agents of the PIDE the door, but there was no repression.
You have edited a posthumous book his wife.
in 1973. It’s called “Each person brings in Itself A Life” are poems and other writings. She converted to Catholicism, and we started to have a very active life in the Catholic aspect. A great friend of hers, very Catholic, convinced her to let the pill, replacing it by the method of temperature. Pregnant, but she could not have more children, it was a big risk. She and her unborn baby died in childbirth. Was 40 years old.
In his biography, there are four arrests by the political police. When it debuted?
There was a petition of Catholics against the tortures of PIDE, following the Delgado campaign. We’ve all heard in the PIDE headquarters at Rua António Maria Cardoso. My grandfather lived in a fourth floor walls-finals with the headquarters of the PIDE. I was amazed how they lived with the PIDE and the screams of people being tortured and I later heard in Caxias … they never talked about it! One time when I was there, I saw through the window an aunt of mine to extend clothes, three or four meters, humming. I was speechless.
The second arrest …
… was when he was president of the direction of Pragma cooperative and the PIDE closed the headquarters in 1967. I’ve been arrested a few days and treated me with the utmost respect.
Then came the Rat Chapel vigil in 1973.
There already were 15 days in Caxias, but I was treated well. My son Michael was also arrested, was colleague Francisco Louçã. They shaved his beard to all who had it, but let’s mustache. Caxias was the barber who told me that my child was there. But the last time you arrested me in 1973, barely got in Caxias told me: “This time I have the Minister orders to treat as it should be.” Then fell on top of me, the blow. Fortunately faint easily and quickly lost consciousness.
It was one of the organizers of the vigil Mouse?
Yes, but I kept me on purpose in the shade because already It was well known. Carlos Antunes says were the Revolutionary Brigades [BR] who organized. Not true:. Only collaborated
In addition, the BR caused the bursting of dozens of firecrackers. Were you involved in that?
No. Once I was enticed to the BR by the writer Nuno Bragança, who was living in Paris and asked me to participate in a weapons input operation. I hesitated a lot, because I never had a vocation for these things. At one point I met Carlos Antunes, of BR, which was clandestine and arranged a meeting with me near the IPO; gave me a little book for me to study carefully.
What little book was?
A manual manufacturing of explosives. Never had a knack for such actions and after a few days returned it to him.
But his latest arrest was because of a bag with weapons … was
a blunder, because I thought I had to help a friendly person who came to me very upset and afraid of being arrested, saying that a person who had been arrested had happened a large suitcase and asked me to put it in a safe place. I got a very bad enjorcado site. I remembered the secret location and I Luis Moita had arranged to host the “Anti-Colonial Newsletter”: the home of Louise Cabral, a friend of ours, single, where we received a lot of documentation. They arrested the person who asked me for help, I gave my name and came home and get me. I was tortured, I could not resist and I ended up saying which was the case.
The suitcase had …
I never got to know for sure. Only knew it was weapons of MOONLIGHT.
He was tortured …
For … Sleep, beatings, whippings. The worst were the whipping legs. Only I stand it two days and two nights of sleep torture – too little! I had no preparation for that. At one point it appeared an agent amiably and I was in the conversation. It was so bad head I thought it was sincere. I believed and I was saying a few more things.
There were many people who spoke tortured in prison. The most typical, perhaps, was to speak …
Okay, but it’s boring.
denounced many names?
Luis clump, for example, that made the connection to BR. Luisa Cabral was also arrested.
later talked with these people?
Yes. It was horrible to hear the screams of people being tortured in Caxias. Screams piercing! A horror!
I was in a cell alone?
during interrogation. Then I went to a collective cell. I met very good people, as a young man of MOONLIGHT. Ignatius Palma was above our cell, communicating by Morse and challenged me to a game of chess, but how could not play said no. I was able to send me the studio a small clipboard to projects, pencils and pens (not allowed bars because they had beaks). This fellow was so pleased to see me drawing that then took the Architecture course at Porto.
was imprisoned how long?
I was released after April 25, 27. Fortunately, because he was there for several years in jail. I was lucky!
In the 1969 elections had been connected to the CDE or CEUD?
I was active in the CDE, but we arrived in time to display the list on Civil Government Portalegre. I would be number one, perhaps because it is the oldest. After April 25, the elections for the Constituent Assembly, was again head the list of the Socialist Left Movement [MES] in Portalegre. And when was the Left Bloc, which supported initially returned to be. I was never elected.
Because it away from the pack?
My perspective is that organizations which had given rise (UDP PSR and Politics XXI) to dissolve and formed a new party, different. But these old partidecos continued … I disagreed and wrote a letter criticizing and off me.
Have you ever been invited to join the CFP?
No. Just to get a movement that was in its orbit, the joints of the Patriotic Action. Regarding the PC could always keep my distance. Pretended that all those horrors of Stalin had not existed …
met Alvaro Cunhal?
I spoke with him once, during Mozambique’s independence. A conversation with divergent views, but very friendly.
Mario Soares?
We are friends. When was exiled to Sao Tome in 1968, I went to the airport. Was there a lot of people to protest and at one point appeared the police with sticks and yet we caught. At the time of MES, the PS was our main enemy, we thought it was too reformist. Jorge Sampaio who is known better. His group, which led to the MES, had several secret meetings before the April 25th in our studio, on Rua da Alegria. It was through the Nuno Portas, my partner.
At MES Congress of December 1974, when it was split from the group Sampaio, you continued in the party …
This split was a disaster. Came the most brilliant and mature, the newest and radicals were like Ferro Rodrigues and Augusto Mateus. If there had been a split, the MES could have some MPs elected to the Constituent and be a kind of Left Bloc, an alternative. Thus, the PS and PC taken over the left. One of my failures was this split. I received a letter from the afflicted Luis Salgado Matos, who was the provisional government of Mozambique, asking me to avoid a split – and was not able to do anything! I who made the Congress closing speech, but it was not me who wrote it …
Who was it?
Ferro Rodrigues! Never had a knack for these things, so I read a speech made by another …
The MES was involved in the PREC up to the neck. I have not been
active on November 25, but there were people who took part. The Catalina Pestana, for example, was in charge of organizing the supply in case of having to go underground. There were selected MES militants for a kind of militia, armed by the US, to combat the commandos of Amadora. Fortunately they have not do anything
Just had a lapidary phrase:. “The PS was the main enemy.” It was a parse error?
was a mistake. Although I feel that without the split, the MES could have been an alternative to the left of the PS, who leaned far to the right and capitalism. Many years later, I and my wife, Irene Buarque, we ended up joining the PS when the Ferro Rodrigues was elected secretary-general.
CIDAC was a creation of his and Luis Moita and his daughter Luisa continued …
“Anti-Colonial Newsletter” served as the basis for CIDAC. First as a Center of Information and Documentation Anti-Colonial and, more recently, Intervention Centre for the Development Amilcar Cabral.
No longer believer?
At one point yes, largely because of the episode of the death of my wife. It was not immediate, but it was always a wound. After methyl me in politics and I ended up coming to the conclusion that the supernatural did not tell me anything. But, looking at my life and my training, I think I’m Catholic, but not practicing. I am a believer.
What is your work in that review more?
is the “Franjinhas” building in Lisbon. Many of the important work that was done in collaboration, especially with Nuno Portas. The “Franjinhas” was a project with John Braula Kings and lived it intensely, to the detail. There was a critical, even complimentary, who called him “Hanger”, but the name did not catch on. “Franjinhas” was a series of very popular television at the time, with a dog that had a fuzzy.
It was one of the four who won Valmor Awards.
Other were the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (with Nuno Portas), a housing building in North Groves, Lisbon (with Antonio Pinto Freitas) and the station Cais do Sodre Subway (with Pedro Botelho). But one of the work I’m most proud is the Block Free Waters in Lisbon made with Bartolomeu da Costa Cabral.
What was your last job?
The POLIS program of Covilha, in partnership with Luis Cabral. Years before, he had done the remodeling of the Town Hall Square, where also attended my wife, Irene.
It got to use new technologies?
I tried, but I gave up. I was not able.
Its architecture is very marked by economy of means, without arabesques …
Inside of modern architecture, which always defended, is stripped, unornamented. I was never given to schools or trends in architecture. My work is, in essence, different from others because I was never aligned with any school. One can speak of formal simplicity, but with the creation of spaces to meet the needs and problems. Keep three essential principles proclaimed by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who gave a definition terse architecture, which has to comply with three things: firmitas (consistency and good quality of construction), the utilitas (functionality) and, finally, the venustas ( beauty or aesthetics). He speaks of it as a tripod, and there should be a great balance between the three. The Casa da Música in Porto, is the best example of a value that prevails over others: the aesthetic, very sacrificing functionality. It’s like a maze, with spaces left over and are good for nothing, being difficult to go from one to the other sites. Now too there is the cult of the image.
architecture image Worship and the architect.
Exactly.
What is the difference between designing a temple, a factory or a theater?
In churches you must have a vertical dimension. There is space in the assembly, similar to an auditorium, where people gather and converge, standing around the altar. In addition, there must be a vertical element for the distinction from a normal auditorium connection to the supernatural. See the church of Siza Vieira, in Marco de Canaveses. The church is very beautiful, has this vertical connection, especially through the door, very high. But as regards the rest, is a step backwards.
Why?
Because it is a rectangular nave, where people are sitting behind each other, instead of being round the altar, which is there in the background … With an aggravating factor: there are no banks, but individual seats, something never seen in Portugal. Chairs appeal to individualism. The bank run may be full but there is always room for one more … I made you this criticism.
But it was applauded by the Church …
Yes, and it is a pilgrimage among the architects who come from all over Europe to see. It is very beautiful indeed, but failure in this aspect.
How to look at the current architecture?
In general it is too dominated by the image. To the detriment of other attributes, especially functionality. It’s the price of being original by force. It is the cult of the object.
What is the architect you would most like to work with?
Nuno Portas.
And what is the best Portuguese architect?
I’m not very updated, but I think it remains Alvaro Siza Vieira. I’ve never done any project with him. We have very different styles.
I know you grew a beard in Cuba for over half a century!
Influenced by Che Guevara, of course! I went to Havana to participate in a congress of the International Union of Architects [UIA], in 1963, four years after the revolution triumph. I attended the opening of the congress a speech of Fidel. The next day spoke Che and I was thrilled with it, of course. I decided to bring the recorded Fidel’s speech and, although with great difficulty, I managed a coil. Che’s speech brought it in writing. I came from there already with the beard. When I arrived I did a session here at home for some friends, among them Jorge Sampaio. We heard the speech of Fidel together. Organized another session at the Union of Architects, which was an official thing, but trust us; It was in the National Fine Arts Society. Years later, the PIDE here came home, picked up this coil and took it without even knowing what it was.
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