Consultation of the archives of FAULisbon
We dedicated the month of October 2019 to the intense consultation of the archive of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon (FAUL). We went back to the most ancient times, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, from the period of architecture at the School of Fine Arts. We had very pleasant and stimulating surprises.
We appreciate the support of the FAUL administrative team!
The history of women architects in the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies"
The framework of the challenges and issues around women's history in architecture was one of the topics discussed on the first day of the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies" (co-organization of Mulheres na Arquitectura association, research project W@ARCH.PT and BIP/ZIP project "Um Género de Escola!"). On September 18, Patrícia Santos Pedrosa, coordinator of W@ARCH.PT, shared an afternoon of reflections with architect and researcher Daniela Arias Laurino (Uruguay/Spain, Un Día / Una Arquitecta project) and with the participants of the summer school.
Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies"
For the first time in Portugal there was a school dedicated to themes of architecture and the city with a gender perspective. With the co-organization of the Mulheres na Arquitectura association (Women in Architecture), the research project W@ARCH.PT and the BIP / ZIP project "Um Género de Escola!", The application of a reflective and participative methodology, with a gender perspective, was privileged. Between the 18th and 20th of September 2019, at CIULisboa, the Summer School "Cities and Gender: Perspectives and Strategies", brought together students of architecture, technicians of city councils and people related to associations, from different parts of the country, with national and international experts.
During 3 days, conferences, workshops, urban walks, viewing and debating films, made it possible to understand the possibilities of strategies for: 1. Visibility and reinforcement of professionals (architects, urban planners, etc.) in places of technical and political decision; 2. Questioning about the urban consolidation of inequalities and the consequent socio-spatial resistances and 3. Assessment of consolidated or developing urban realities and processes and necessary strategies. The essential objective was fulfilled: to create safe and debate environments that allow learning and working with tools that aim at building more solid urban intervention strategies with an awareness of diversity, for an inclusive daily life.
Gender Matters: first publication in the scientific journal The Plan Journal
Patrícia Santos Pedrosa, coordinator of the research project W@ARCH.PT, published a reflection on the initial phase of the research in the volume "Gender Matters" of the international scientific journal The Plan Journal. Subjected to a peer-review process, the article The W@ARCH.PT as an Ongoing Feminist Research Project in Architecture: Contextualizing Initial Reflections" presented the initial questions and considerations about the history of women architects in Portugal and the strategies of feminist historiography.
Work and welcome at home: the II International Congress Internacional of CIEG
Between the 24th and 26th of July 2019, the II International CIEG Congress took place: Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies: Reflexivity, resistance and action took place in Lisbon. Organized by CIEG - Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies (ISCSP-ULisboa), the research center that hosts the research project W@ARCH.PT, was a moment of important interdisciplinary learning, critical reflections and expansion of contacts between researchers in gender studies and feminist studies.
The creation of specific sessions on "Spaces, narratives and genres" has established a place in this congress for city and architecture themes. We received, with great emotion, international specialist researchers in these areas, such as Lori Brown (USA) and Silvana Rubino (Brazil). The W@ARCH.PT project team, which spoke about the feminist theories and methodologies that support the research, was accompanied by fundamental reflections such as, for example, the research on the city Palmas with a gender perspective (Brazilian postdoctoral researcher Patrícia Orfila) and the presentation of the project of the association MA "Um Género de Escola", from BIP/ZIP (architect and researcher Joana Pestana Lages), about gender and school spaces.
W@ARCH.PT in Brighton to the IV Symposium on Architecture and Gender
The team of the research project W@ARCH.PT was in Brighton on the 24th and 25th of June 2019 to participate in the IV Symposium on Architecture and Gender - Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practices for a Decolonised Pedagogy. The organization was in charge of Catalina Mejía Moreno (University of Brighton) and Emma Cheatle (University of Sheffield). This event enabled both the presentation of the research project at the international level and in the context of gender studies in architecture, as well as the debate and focus on the issues of education and the Academy. It also allowed to strengthen and expand the international network of researchers in this field: we met again María Novas (Galician architect and researcher) and Nuría Alvarez Lombardero (Spanish architect, teacher and researcher) and, with great joy and admiration, we met the Australian architects Naomi Stead and Justine Clarck, from the project Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture.
Library: new books available for consultation
The W@ARCH.PT project library, integrated in the Research Center for Gender Studies (CIEG/ISCSP-ULisboa) provides new books to face-to-face consultation. It has arrived, for example, Le Dictionnaire universel des Créatrices (2013), a collection organized by Béatrice Didier, Antoinette Fouque e Mireille Calle-Gruber and with diverse authorship, which retrieves biographies of women all over the world and in different areas of activity, and the last book of Zaída Muxí Mujeres, casas, ciudades. Más alla del umbral (2018).
The project team continues to grow: Patrícia Orfila Reis
The architect, researcher and teacher Patrícia Orfila Reis crossed the Atlantic Ocean to join the W@ARCH.PT team. It is with great joy that we received it for a year, as part of its post-doctorate.
Patrícia Orfila Reis is a Brazilian architect and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT, Brazil). PhD in Social History at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Brazil). Currently she coordinates the “Women Building Spaces" project.
Welcome to the team!
The project team is growing: Lia Gil Antunes
After the selection process was completed, we received the architect Lia Gil Antunes in the W@ARCH.PT research project team. The research fellow will support all research activities, for at least one year.
Lia Gil Antunes (1988) defines herself as a woman, feminist, architect, researcher (CIEG/ISCSP-ULisbon) and activist. Graduated from the darq-University of Coimbra (2012), she is a PhD candidate with the thesis “Women in the SAAL Process (1974-1976) in Portugal: Women architects and residents for the right to housing”. She is co-founder of Women in Architecture association (MA) and her main areas of interests and research are: feminists and gender studies; feminist urbanism; participatory processes; History and theory of architecture; Right to housing; Right to the city.
Welcome to the team!
Creation of a library on gender studies, feminists and women in architecture
The research project W@ARCH.PT Women Architects in Portugal: building visibility, 1942-1986 is in its initial phase and plans to organize and make available the first library in Portugal focused on the themes of women's history in architecture and feminist spatial theories, methodologies and practices, with physical space in CIEG/ISCSP-ULisboa. The first numbers start to arrive. Come to know or contact us, in case you need to consult a specific book!