Pancho Guedes: media, buildings, whatever.
by Jorge Figueira
The publishing of the work of Pancho Guedes in The Architectural Review (cover, 1961), L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (“Architecture fantastiques”, 1962) and in “Tropical architecture in the dry and humid zones” book by Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew (1964), meant that Pancho started the 1960s in media high rotation. In fact, Pancho’s architecture was at the same time made of concrete and paper; it was gaining traction both in the “real” world and in the fast growing culture of architectural books and magazines. For Pancho they were just different means to the same end: to expand beauty in design land.
Jorge Figueira is associate professor at DARQ – the Architecture Department in the Faculty of Science and Technology of Coimbra University and researcher at the Centre for Social Studies from the same University. In 2009 he presented his doctoral thesis “A Periferia Perfeita: Pós-Modernidade na Arquitectura Portuguesa, Anos 60 - Anos 80” at Coimbra University.
