Fernando T?vora

(b Oporto, 25 Jan 1923). Portuguese architect and teacher. He graduated (1950) from the Escola de Belas Artes, Oporto, where he studied under Carlos Ramos, and where he taught after 1951; one of his own pupils was Alvaro Siza. T?vora's innovative design approach is demonstrated by the market building (1953-9) at Vila da Feira, an open space where the exposed reinforced concrete of the vast roof cantilevers is combined with stone, a traditional local material; and by the primary school (1958) at Cedros, Vila Nova de Gaia, in which an organic vocabulary reveals the influence of Alvar Aalto. In these works and in designs for single-family houses, for example Casa Ribeiro da Silva (1956) at Ofir, and for collective housing in Oporto, for example Ramalde, Campo Alegre and Foz de Douro, T?vora made a decisive contribution to the spread of new ideas on architecture in Portugal in the 1950s. He participated in Arquitectura Popular em Portugal (1956-61), a survey of vernacular architecture, as part of the team concerned with the Minho region, and he was also a member of CIAM. Some of T?vora's projects occupied him for many years, for example his enlargement (1976-85) of the Pousada de S Marinha da Costa at Guimar?es, which involved persistent archaeological research to blend the new work with the existing parts of an 18th-century monastery. In 1987 he was awarded the Grande Pr?mio Nacional de Arquitectura.

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