Echoes of Japan : an interpretation of Fernando Távora’s approach to design

Abstract

“I keep a photograph of my parents taken in the cloister of the Convent of Santa Marinha da Costa in 1915 before I was even born. // Relationships, fatality.” Fernando Távora (1923–2005), a Portuguese architect who was born in Porto, Portugal and graduated from the Porto School of Fine Arts (EBAP) in 1950, brought to Portuguese architecture the challenge of seeing tradition as a fundamental element for achieving modernity. As early as 1945, the year in which he began his higher training in Architecture, he wrote the essay “O Problema da Casa Portuguesa” [The Problem of the Portuguese House], in which he formulated the connection between Modern Architecture and the traditional house. Throughout his life as an architect, pedagogue, traveller and active participant in the national and international debate on modern architecture, he at all times revealed a desire for continuity with tradition. He became a decisive figure for understanding Portuguese architecture in the latter half of the twentieth century. Távora became interested in Japan and its culture early on. He observed Japanese architecture in the various books he was to acquire from 1945 onwards. He paid particular attention to traditional architecture. In 1960 he visited Japan, attending the World Design Conference (WoDeCo) in Tokyo. The contemporary Japanese cities and architecture did not make a good impression on him. On the contrary, he found his fascination for traditional architecture validated, particularly for the harmony that comes from its unity – the unity that permeates the design of the interiors of this architecture, integrating all the elements necessary for the unfolding of daily life. Távora’s contact with Japan is reflected in some of the projects he was working on when he visited the country in 1960 – the Tennis Pavilion in Quinta da Conceição, Leça da Palmeira, Portugal, for example, as he himself confirmed. Less obvious, but no less significant, is the possibility of discerning that reflection in a more abstract, less formal way, at the level of the unity and integrative quality that was at the root of the designs for some of his works. This paper proposes a reflection on echoes of the relationship that Távora established with Japan and with its traditional architecture, in particular its interior spaces. The object of observation will be the new wing of rooms at the Guimarães Monastery Pousada, in Guimarães, Portugal, crossing the reflections contained in some of Távora’s writings with his design practice.