Open House Porto to celebrate April on 6 and 7 July

"In a year celebrating 50 years of democracy years of democracy, Casa da Arquitectura challenged the curators to think of modeluilding democra spaces in this process of building democratisation. The curatorial duo, which for the first time is made up of two women from different generations and backgrounds, has responded in an exemplary way to this challenge of showing how the principles of April were put into practice. Architecture was an instrument for implementing the principles of democracy," explains Nuno Sampaio, executive director of Casa da Arquitectura, the institution responsible for organising and producing OHP.

Margarida Quintã and Teresa Novais explain the concept behind this year's OHP: "Open House Porto 2024 invites visitors to celebrate fifty years of Portuguese democracy. If in the revolution of 25 April 1974 the Portuguese people demanded "peace, bread, housing, health and education" [1], in 2024 we want, on the one hand, to know what we have been able to achieve, and on the other, to identify what we want for the future. Today there are new ideas for managing the city to make it more inclusive, accessible and sustainable through
sustainable through urban regeneration actions, the creation of mobility networks or the creation of ecological structures aimed at improving citizens' quality of life. We also want to publicise these cities under construction. We are therefore proposing visits to public, municipal and co-operative spaces built over the last five decades that portray the transformations that have taken place in the municipalities of Maia, Matosinhos, Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. What we want to ask is: what do we Portuguese need today to "have real freedom?"

In the company of experts and volunteers, the doors of public initiative architecture realised over the last 50 years are opened in the four Open House Porto cities. The tour is accompanied by the Kaleidoscope and Plus programmes, which offer a range of open activities for all audiences. All visits and activities are free of charge.

Open House Porto is organised and produced by Casa da Arquitectura with the Strategic Partnership of the Municipalities of Maia, Matosinhos, Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. It's the only time in the world that four cities come together for the event as a single territory. To make the Open House possible every year, the support of volunteers is essential. We're looking for volunteers aged 16 and over with an interest in architecture, built heritage and the history of the cities of Maia, Matosinhos, Porto and Gaia and a willingness to interact with the public.

Biographies

Teresa Novais
She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto in 1991. In the same year she formed aNC arquitectos with Jorge Carvalho. Her work has been recognised with awards such as the Honourable Mention at the João de Almada Prize (2019), the Prize at the IX Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (2014) and the Nomination for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award (2011). The aNC studio has been invited to present its work at conferences in Portugal and abroad, and its work has been published in numerous specialised publications. Teresa Novais regularly teaches design courses and also takes part in critical design assessment sessions at various national and European architecture schools. She was president of the OASRN's Board of Directors (2008|2010), and co-responsible member for the OASRN's Culture department (2005|2007). She is currently a delegate on the Council of Delegates of the Order of Architects. She is co-curator of the "More than Houses" programme, an initiative of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto to celebrate the 50th anniversary of 25 April 1974.

Margarida Quintã
Margarida Quintã graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (2007) and received her PhD with Distinction and Praise from the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2019). She practises architecture in partnership with Luís Ribeiro da Silva at the ursa architecture studio in Porto, looking at architecture as a form of knowledge and its practice as the identification, formulation and resolution of problems affecting the human condition. Margarida Quintã and Luís Ribeiro da Silva won the Távora Prize in 2019.

[1] Chorus from the intervention song "Liberdade" by Sérgio Godinho, 1974.

More here