Cursos / 3º Ciclo / Faculty of Architecture and Arts :: Architecture

SEMINÁRIO SOBRE FENOMENOLOGIA DA ARQUITECTURA - 2025/2026

1º curricular year
Semestralidade: 2nd semester
ECTS: 15

Teachers

Leading Teacher: Prof. Doutora Maria Tavares
Assistant Professor: Prof. Doutora Maria Tavares

Class type and School hours

Seminário : 2 Horas

Teaching Language

Portuguese

Main Aims/Objectives

Developing research skills in the disciplinary area of architecture and understanding the particular themes of phenomenology. To provide critical insight into how phenomenological thinking can contribute to the organisation and structuring of our perception of the world.

Specific Aims/Objectives

Understanding that phenomenological discourse in architecture can serve as a framework for interpreting reality and, simultaneously, for guiding a formal process (a set of actions necessary to prefigure architectural forms).

Skills to be acquired

The aim is for students to be able to examine the world to which architecture belongs through theory, phenomenological thinking, and practice, practical phenomenology. In this context, it is also proposed that students should be able to organise their research based on essential components for structuring knowledge.

Teaching Procedures

The seminar is a communication strategy that aims to articulate learning, discussion, criticism and synthesis. The fundamentally theoretical lectures will be complemented by theoretical/practical work
developed outside of teaching time, based on the presentations of the different programme contents on the phenomenology of architecture.

Programme

- Phenomenology: the investigation of the experience of experience: ´returning to things themselves´ (Edmund Husserl); ´new way of seeing´ (Martin Heidegger); ´essence of perception´ (Maurice Merleau-Ponty);
- Polysemy in the form and thought of architecture and phenomenology;
- Phenomenology in architecture: place (Christian Norberg-Schulz), body memory (Juhani Pallasmaa; Steven Holl) and tectonics (Kenneth Frampton);
- Criticising the values of hypermodern architecture and phenomenology;
- Tectonics versus Stereotomics (Gottfried Semper; Kenneth Frampton; Alberto Campo Baeza): perceptions of architectural form;
- Case study #1: The alchemy of lightness: Making light with the heavy in Steven Holl´s architecture;
- Case study #2: The stereotomic object in Peter Zumthor´s architectural form;
- Case study #3: Plastic arts intervention in a work by Nuno Teotónio Pereira and António Pinto de Freitas;
- Case study #4: Changing architectural and domestic paradigms in the 1950s and within the framework of housing that was intended to be collective and programmed. Discussion of 3 cases of affordable housing in Portugal;
- Presentation, analysis and critique of practical work.

Evaluation Type

Continuous assessment will be based on the following elements:
1. Attendance;
2. Punctuality;
3. Participation;
4. 1 Practical Assignment.

Teaching Resources

1. Documents summarised in PDF;
2. Various bibliographic resources;
3. Texts; drawings; photographs; films; other documents.

Sustainability Objectives

Reflect with students on project practices that promote commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically the development of programmes that foster equality and equity, as well as the principles of environmental, economic, social, and cultural sustainability.

Keywords

Research;
Phenomenology;
Architectural Project;
Project Process;
Architectural Form.

Main Bibliography

Complementary Bibliography