It was this summer in Lisbon. My best friend Luis invited me to visit the Exhibition: Pancho Guedes – Vitruvius Mozambicanus in the Berardo Collection Museum, Belém.
Amancio Guedes, best known as Pancho Guedes is an architect, a sculptor, and a painter. He was born in Portugal in 1925 and spent most of his creative life in Mozambique, where he made more than 500 designs for buildings. His connection with Africa allowed Pancho to liberate himself from the constraints and restrictive ideas that dominate the mainstream of the art world.
Pancho’s architectures range from extravagantly opulent and personal explorations of space and form to austere, sparse buildings designed to meet demanding and strigent financial conditions.
Guedes was part of the legendary Team 10, often referred to as “Team X”, a group of architects and other invited participants who assembled starting in July 1953 at the 9th Congress of CIAM and created a schism within CIAM by challenging its doctrinare approach to urbanism.
In 1995 I was lucky enough to have him as my Professor Teacher at the subject of “Project” in my last year of my Architecture Degree. It was always a pleasure to discuss my ideas with Pancho, his enthusiasm was contagious and his comments were enlightened by a sparkling magic often accompanied by challenging visions always pursuing new ideas and possibilities.
I think the main lesson I learned from Pancho was not to have limits. And despite how academic that may sound it still a very important principle that has been helping me to challenge myself to pursuit the best ideas for my projects.
For my great delight and surprise I met Pancho Guedes during my visit to his Exhibition. The chances of finding him there were, maybe, 0.1 in 100, but it happened! And above it’s the photo we took together. He is 84 years old, he is still very active, working in Portugal now, inventing new buildings, painting, sculpting and teaching. What an amazing person!
If you are interested to learn more about Pancho Guedes this is his website and you can also find some movies and interviews to Pancho Guedes in YouTube. Here is the link.
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An architect has the most appropriate training and experience to design, co-ordinate and manage your building project. An architect’s education covers a variety of areas, ranging from landscaping design to ergonomics, law, sociology, construction materials and techniques, etc. This diversity allows an architect to foresee many design options while analysing a wide range of requirements and restrictions.
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