Figuration as Participation. Notes on Álvaro Siza's Architecture as Representation

Downloads
Although in the wake of the Modern Movement tradition, Álvaro Siza Vieira's architectural research moves along the thin red line between abstraction and representation. The apparent arbitrariness of some of his compositions, widely analyzed in typological and social key, is primarily an expression of his attention to the moving subject that never translates into illusory devices. Yet, in the last two decades of the 20th century, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic presences began to haunt his architectures, addressing to new meanings. The keys to understanding this phase of Siza's creative trajectory reside in his hypertrophic graphic activity, in his production as a designer and, most of all, as a sculptor. On one hand, his sketches reveal the tension and negotiation between architecture body and human body, which to some extent constitute the extremes of his formal investigation. On the other hand, his objects and sculptures result as intermediate moments of experimentation and clarification by responding the ergonomic demands through the semantic economy of objet trouvée. Through them, Siza's architectural anthropomorphism can be interpreted as a moment of transition towards an architecture parlant, which relies on the connotative participation of people to put in scene no longer figures or characters but interactions and feelings: the opportunity of a meeting.
Angelillo, Antonio. 1997. ílvaro Siza. Scritti di architettura. Milano: Skira
Beaudouin, Laurent. 2008. "L'arpenteur.” In ílvaro Siza. Une question de mesure. Entretiens avec Dominique Machabert et Laurent Beaudouin, edited by Laurent Beaudouin and Dominique Machabert, 13-21. Paris: Editions Le Moniteur
Colonnese, Fabio. 2012. Movimento Percorso Rappresentazione. Fenomenologia e codici dell'architettura in movimento. Roma: Officina Edizioni
Colonnese, Fabio. 2016. "Human Figure as a Cultural Mediator in Architectural Drawings,” in Cultural Influences on Architecture, edited by Gülşah Koíç Yıldız, Marie-Therese Claes, and Bryan Christiansen, 90-129. Hershey, PA: IGI Global
Croset, Pierre-Alain. 1999. ílvaro Siza. Scultura Architettura. Ginevra-Milano: Skira
Curtis, William J. R. 2000. "Notes on invention.” El Croquis 95: 28
Di Napoli, Giuseppe. 2004. Disegnare e conoscere. La mano, l'occhio, il segno. Torino: Einaudi
Eco, Umberto. 1995. The Role of the Reader. Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press
Fleischer, Richard, director. Fantastic Voyage, USA: 1966
Frascari, Marco. 1991. Monsters of architecture. Anthropomorphism in Architectural Theory. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Hatch, John G. 2010. "Some Adaptations of Relativity in the 1920s and the Birth of Abstract Architecture.” Nexus Network Journal 12, no. 1: 131–147
Jenks, Charles. 1977. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. New York: Rizzoli
Kanizsa, Gaetano. 1955. "Margini quasi-percettivi in campi con stimolazione omogenea.” Rivista di Psicologia 49: 7–30
Lammers, Harm. 2012. Potentially...: Unravelling and reconnecting Aldo van Eyck in search of an approach for tomorrow. Master diss., Eindhoven University of Technology
Levit, Robert A. 1996. "ílvaro Siza.” Appendx 3: 74-103
Levit, Robert A. 2006. "Language, sites and types: a consideration of the work of Alvaro Siza.” In Narrating Architecture: A Retrospective Anthology, edited by James Madge and Andrew Peckham, 3-28. New York, NY: Routledge.
Payne, Alina. 2002. "Reclining Bodies: Figural Ornament in Renaissance Architecture.” In Body and Building. Essays on the changing relation, edited by G. Dodds and R. Tavernor, 94–113. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Morteo, Enrico and ílvaro Siza. 1993. "Il progetto come esperienza.” Domus 746: 17–28
Rossi, Aldo. 1984. A Scientific Autobiography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Siza, ílvaro, and Pierre-Alain Croset. 1986. "ílvaro Siza. Condensare la complessití . Conversazione con Pierre-Alain Croset.” Casabella 526: 9–15
Siza, ílvaro. 1995. "Frammenti di un'esperienza. Conversazioni con Carlos Castanheira, Pedro de Llano, Francisco Rei e Santiago Saera.” In ílvaro Siza. Opere e progetti, edited by Pedro de Llano, and Carlos Castanheira, 18-22. Milano: Electa
Siza, ílvaro. 1998. Immaginare l'evidenza. Bari-Roma: Gius. Laterza e Figli
Souto de Moura, Eduardo. 2010. House in Mallorca. ílvaro Siza. [La Coruña]: Labirinto de Paixons
Testa, Peter. 1987. "Tradition and Actuality in the Antonio Carlos Siza House.” Journal of Architectural Education 40, no. 4: 24-30
Wenders, Wim. 1992. L'atto di vedere. The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations. Milano: Ubulibri
Zöllner, Frank. 2014. "Anthropomorphism: From Vitruvius to Neufert, from Human Measurement to the Module of Fascism.” In Images of the Body in Architecture: Anthropology and Built Space, edited by Kurt Wagner and Jesper Cepl, 47–75. Tubingen, Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth
Copyright (c) 2018 Author

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal which is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).