Women architects in Portugal: A long and winding road

• Autor(a) principal: Pedrosa, Patrícia Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/14345
• topic: História da arquitectura - Sec. XX; Mulheres Arquitectas; Portugal; Women Architects; Gender Perspective

This essay aims to contribute to the study of the role that women have assumed in the history of Portuguese architecture, an issue in need of further work. Given the difficulty involved in the identification of clear milestones, it became necessary to extend the time span of this study, from the second half of the 19th century right until the 1940s. All things considered, this time frame was chosen because the context between wars in Portugal is so much looser than in other European countries. This article is divided in four parts, each of which hopes to add to the central issue by identifying the most relevant facts and principles behind it. First, it attempts to establish a framework of the Portuguese political agenda between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Second, it focuses on the development of the teaching of arts in Portugal, the tardy creation of the major in architecture and the emergence of the first women students. Then, it considers the involvement of women in a work environment traditionally dominated by male architects. Finally, it deals with the subject of architects that sustained both a teaching and a professional practice, more specifically the experience of two women pioneers, Maria José Estanco and Maria José Marques da Silva. In addition to identifying a provisional chronology, it also deals with the specific constraints of the Portuguese society and the subsequent consequences on academic research, as well as the emergence of the first Portuguese women architects.