Fernando Luís Cardoso de Meneses de Tavares e Távora, ComSE, simply known as Fernando Távora (

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

, August 25, 1923 -

Matosinhos Matosinhos () is a City#Portugal, city and a Concelho, municipality in the district of Porto District, Porto in Portugal. The municipality covers an area of approximately and had 172,557 inhabitants in 2021. It is bordered by the municipalities o ...

, September 3, 2005), was a renowned Portuguese

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Biography

The sixth of seven children and third of three sons of José Pinto Tavares de Mendonça Ferrão or José Ferrão de Tavares e Távora and wife Maria José do Amaral Ferrão Lobo Machado or Maria José Lobo de Sousa Machado Cardoso de Meneses, of the Viscounts of Paço de Nespereira, he inherited from his mother the House of Covilhã. He graduated in architecture from the Porto School of Fine Arts (which later became the

school of architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is a professional school or institution specializing in architectura ...

of the

University of Porto The University of Porto (''Universidade do Porto'') is a Portuguese public research university located in Porto, and founded on 22 March 1911. It is the second largest Portuguese university by number of enrolled students, after the University ...

) in 1952. Having sat the examination in Fine Composition for Professor of Architecture, he was later invited to become a Professor at the school. Participating in several

Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...

(CIAM) and

Team 10 Team 10 – just as often referred to as Team X or Team Ten – was a group of architects and other invited participants who assembled starting in July 1953 at the 9th Congress of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, International ...

meetings, he became a key person in the modernization of the Porto School. Two of his former students,

Álvaro Siza Álvaro or Álvar (, , ) is a Spanish, Galician and Portuguese male given name and surname of Germanic Visigothic origin. The patronymic surname derived from this name is Álvarez. Given name Artists * Álvaro Carrillo, Afro-Mexican songwrit ...

(who also worked in his architecture office) and

Eduardo Souto de Moura Eduardo Elísio Machado Souto de Moura (; born 25 July 1952), better known as Eduardo Souto de Moura, is a Portuguese architect who was the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2011 and the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2013. Along with Fe ...

, have been awarded the

Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consisten ...

. Later on, Távora became "President of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto" and university professor at the same faculty, as well as professor of the Department of Architecture at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

. He took part in the late 1950s "Survey on Portuguese Architecture" and was the author of several essays, namely "O Problema da Casa Portuguesa" (Lisbon, 1947) and "Da Organização do Espaço" (Porto, 1962 and 1982). One of his most important works in the 1980s was the renovation and extension of the Pousada de Guimarães, a former convent which at the time was transformed into the Sta. Marinha Historic Hotel. Besides his academic career, Távora worked as an architect for Porto Town Council, consultant to

Vila Nova de Gaia Vila Nova de Gaia (; ), or simply Gaia, is a city and a municipality in Porto District in Norte Region, Portugal, Norte Region, Portugal. It is located south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper had a populati ...

Town Council, consultant in the "Commissariat on the Urban Renovation of the Ribeira/Barredo" (Porto) project, consultant in the "Technical Bureau of the Northern Planning Commission", and consultant in the "Local Technical Bureau of

Guimarães Guimarães () is a city and municipality located in northern Portugal, in the district of Braga. Its historic town centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, in recognition for being an "exceptionally well-preserved ...

Town Council".

Works (selected)

* Summer House at Ofir * Vila da Feira Municipal Market * Quinta da Conceicao Municipal Parc in

Leça da Palmeira Leça da Palmeira () is an area in the Portuguese city of Matosinhos north of the Leça river. It was a civil parish until 2013, when it was merged with the parish of Matosinhos, forming Matosinhos e Leça da Palmeira. The parish covered and had ...

* Quinta da Conceicao Tennis Pavilion in

* Santa Marinha Convent in

* General urban plan of

* Renovation of the Soares dos Reis National Museum in

* Renovation of the Praça 8 de Maio in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

Recognition

Távora's work was exhibited at exhibitions around the world, including the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

, Washington; "Artes Plásticas I and II" at the

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the wealthiest charitable founda ...

, Lisbon; "Eleven Architects from Oporto", Lisbon; "Architectures à Porto", Clemont Ferrand; Europália 1991, Brussels; and the

Venice Biennial The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

. The Fernando Távora Architecture prize (Portuguese: Prémio Fernando Távora de Arquitetura) of the Portuguese Architects Association is named after him.

Awards

He was granted a scholarship by the

and the Institute for Culture in the United States and Japan in 1960.FERNANDO TÁVORA: Diário da Viagem aos USA, 1960, online at: http://www.oasrn.org/premio.php?inf=diario, retrieved January 24, 2015 He was awarded several prizes in architecture, as well as the Golden Medal of the city of Porto and the Order of St James of the Sword. The

awarded him a

Doctor Honoris Causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

References

Footnotes

External links

William JR Curtis William J. R. Curtis (born 21 March 1948, in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, England) is an architectural history, architectural historian whose writings have focused on twentieth century architecture. Curtis seems particularly interested in broadenin ...

on Fernando Távora in

The Architectural Review ''The Architectural Review'' is a monthly international architectural magazine. It has been published in London since 1896. Its articles cover the built environment – which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism � ...

, online at: http://www.architectural-review.com/reviews/reputations/fernando-tvora/8643163.article *