Shrinking the plan. A middle-class wishful thinking in the outskirts of Lisbon

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, large-scale Portuguese architectural production was largely promoted by the State. This took further aspects after the 1974 revolution when housing construction became one of the pillars of the new state policy. It is in this context that Manuel Vicente develops the project for Quinta do Bacalhau in different times: 1– Before 1974 by EPUL as part of UNOR 26 of which M. Vicente was the coordinator, 2– From 1974 as a SAAL operation after the site was taken over by a residents' committee, 3– After 1976, as it was built outside the revolutionary period by a housing cooperative and financed by the state. Unlike most SAAL projects – small, contained and with low-row houses –, and despite the ideologically marked circumstances of this period, it presents somehow ostentatious. Volumes of broad and generous features, incorporation of commerce on the ground floors like a boulevard, contrast with the dominant model, thus raising some questions: – to what extent did a particular class position correspond to a certain typology, style, etc.? – wouldn't this imply an aspiration to the same “rights” as the middle-class, as far as architecture is concerned? M. Vicente remains throughout his life in an ideologically multifaceted position. Close to the Communist Party, he has a cosmopolitan experience still in the 1960s being in touch with the Western capitalism – in the United States and in Macao – and in close contact with the speculation and profit markets. It has thus a double folded stance regarding the state-sponsored housing and low standards one, as if responding to the residents were the same as responding to himself. In this communication we intend to analyse through drawings of the project how the notion of housing for “a middle-class” crossed through the project. This argument is revealed in a plan of a dwelling with dimensions close to middle-class, which is later reduced to smaller areas, but “keeping” architectural qualities.