In the period between 1910 and 1974, Portugal came across a diversity of political frames, from the 1st Republic (1910-1926) to Estado Novo dictatorship regime (1933-1974). As in most of the European southern countries, the welfare state was here built upon an authoritarian regime, giving rise to a complex and diverse mode of action that was different from those of other countries.

The issue of low-income housing was part of a set of government measures addressing the basic needs of the poor (education, health and justice). Therefore, the housing solutions (construction process, space layout, dwelling typologies, use, urban integration) express the nature of the state's commitment and the relation between ideology, welfare policies and housing architecture.

Being this political and economical context the focus of most of the research literature, the housing realizations (architecture and urban environments) remain largely uncharted as an element of the state welfare politicies and procedures. These housing sets built all over Portugal emerge today as a large and valuable 'document' either to gain or to consolidate further knowledge in its contextual studies - political, social, and cultural - as to generate new perspectives on the history of architecture. It is thus our purpose to inquire this built reality in terms of its architecture aiming at a wide understanding of the phenomenon.
'MdH - Mapping Public Housing: A critical review of the State-subsidized residential architecture in Portugal (1910-1974)' is a research project gathering an international and multidisciplinary team composed of architects, sociologists, historians and archivists, working in different stages (seniors, post-doc, and PhD and master students), approaches and contexts.

MdH will rely on a documentary corpus anchored on the settlements' residential and urban designs archived in various Portuguese Institutions, as well as on the related process documents (memoirs, reports, and assessment procedures, etc.). This data will then be compiled in a database that relates each operation/estate/building to bibliographic and photographic references, as well as to its legal frame.
Available both to a general and Institutional public, the database will substantiate a contemporary vision of the residential settlements, endorsing their contemporary intervention actions, as well as a review of the political, economical and social 20th century history integrating alternative readings established from social housing.
This analysis and reasoning will be discussed in international Conferences and meetings and shared in the form of a Booklet Periodical Series focused on specific aspects, systems or cases; an Exhibition on the State-subsidized residential architecture and the related Catalogue; an International Conference to discuss the research conducted; and finally in the form of a Book based in an international comparative study.
Moreover, as a three-year project, MdH will offer the corpus for scholars to explore the field of international comparative housing research. Drawing on an integrated approach, this project aims at proposing the opportunity to build a critical review of several dialectics - architecture and power, tradition and modernity, authorial architectural practice and civil service, global history and local experiences - crossing the boundaries of disciplines, countries and time.

Benefiting not only the academic audience but also the general public’s knowledge of this housing production, MdH intends to enrich the discussion on the subject of the role of the state in housing development, as well as to contribute to the development of a common ground in upholding decisions in the environmental, social and economical fields related to housing management and to architectural heritage management and protection.

Team

Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos (Principal Investigator)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Eliseu Gonçalves (Coordinator)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Maria Tavares
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Marta Rocha
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Raquel Paulino
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Teresa Cálix
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Gisela Lameira (Bolsa de Investigação MdH)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Luciana Rocha (Bolsa de Investigação MdH)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Sérgio Dias Silva (Bolsa de Investigação FCT)
Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

Virgílio Borges Pereira
Instituto de Sociologia da Universidade do Porto

Fernanda Ribeiro
CETAC.MEDIA, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto

Carmen Espegel
GIVCO, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid

Daniel Movilla
GIVCO, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid

Collaborating Institutions

Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo

Universidade de Lisboa

Research Units

Centro de Estudos de Arquitectura e Urbanismo (CEAU/FA/UP)

Grupo de Investigación en Vivienda Colectiva (GIVCO)

Instituto de História Contemporânea (IHC/FCSH/UNL)

Instituto de Sociologia (IS/FL/UP)