The subject displayed obtained, in the last few years, a primary importance in the international architecture debate context.
And it is symptomatic that it can also be felt in Portugal, country with one of the highest development rates in the construction sector in Europe during the last decennium, the need to talk about this argument.
During the execution phase we can no longer talk about architecture projects without mentioning other parallel projects, thousands of specialties that follow and participate on the definition of constructive details, while the space for improvisation and work adaptation transforms itself more and more in a mechanical vision of the project (as if architecture was to be an automobile, as if physical and institutional context did not exist).
Needless to quote the innumerous structural changes that building industry suffered in Portugal, so that it can be declared that the architect figure, arts and crafts man, as it was thought until now, is in danger of being no longer needed in production processes, to which the project means more and more domination capacity of techniques and work management time.
Europe arrives in a ratifying way, with its security rules, financial management, infrastructures, town planning, and standardization: the thing that can transform the architectural project in one of the specialties, a simply bureaucratic fact, and the architect changes from The Author to one of the work authors, and not even of the most important ones. The architect domain has a tendency to become more and more limited, to move towards the commercial dimension of the pure façade drawing. Architecture versus styling. Will elaborated seeds have the capability of replacing nature's wise interpretation that skilful craftsman hands can do? Will CAD and catalogues replace the drawing board and architects imagination?
Paradoxically, the slowness with which the country absorbed modernization allowed the preservation of a large places and landscapes patrimony, material cultures, which now establish projective references, with the condition that every citizen be able to distinguish the importance of good architecture beyond immediate economical aspects or aesthetic values conditioned by momentary fashion.
Then, it will be needed an architecture capable of reading, within the context, the values about to be highlighted, even though minimums, of environment and culture; to launch, with limited financial resources, urban area qualification processes as well as little rural fragments; to stimulate architecture, through quality of functions, of materials, of techniques and drawing, to express an added value to the places (also in the economical way, and why not?).
Places which are only waiting for the performance of the few architects who own a rare sensibility in environment perception, using ancient and modern materials, but not without having in consideration the present materialistic demands of welfare and quality of life of contemporary society.
The exhibition presents some, among the best, who live and work in Portugal.

SECRETARIAT
SERGIO ANTÃO
JOSÉ LAMEIRAS
SUSANA CARVALHO
FERREIRA DA SILVA
OLGA MARQUES

LOCATION
FORUM DA MAIA. MAIA. PORTUGAL

DATE
20 JUNE TO 1 JULY 1997

ORGANIZED BY
MAIA CITY HALL

SUPPORTED BY
FORUM DA MAIA
ESAP/CESAP
LIVRARIA LEITURA