Tribute to Professor Raul Hestnes Ferreira

The Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at Universidade Lusófona (DAU-ULHT) has promoted several tribute initiatives to Architect Raul Hestnes Ferreira, a professor at DAU, by occasion of the start of the academic year 2016/17.

Architect Hestnes Ferreira is a renowned personality of Portuguese architecture, with a vast and important set of work on social, public and education architecture. He has been an active architect in Portugal since the 1960s, and thus an acting witness of the last decades of Portuguese architecture.
As one of the protagonists of the Lisbon SAAL process – a 1970’s participative architecture process – Architect Hestnes Ferreira was honoured in 2015 by a large exhibition on the process at Fundação Serralves, Oporto. He is also one of the central personalities of Les Universalistes exhibition on Portuguese architecture (Paris, 2016), organized by Gulbenkian Foundation and Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine.

DAU’s initiatives started with a tribute session on the 23rd September at Biblioteca Victor de Sá, ULHT – tribute commentaries were offered by several people, including DAU professors Pedro Ressano Garcia and Mário Krüger. Also at the Biblioteca space, DAU inaugurated an exhibition of Architect Hestnes Ferreira’s models and drafts.
This exhibition was toured on the 29th, Architect Hestnes Ferreira himself guiding the tour, in the scope of his lectures for Elements of Architecture I subject at DAU’s Integrated Master in Architecture.

Still on the 23rd, there was a showing by Professor Luís Pavão (EST-Tomar) of a series of his photos of the models in exhibition, followed by the showing of the short “A Encomenda” (2011), a documentary on Architect Hestnes Ferreira’s first built work, Casa em Albarraque (1958-61).

“A Encomenda” was shown again on the 3rd October, this time accompanied by the showing of interview with Architect Hestnes Ferreira, also filmed at the time by director Architect Manuel Graça Dias, who commented both showings.