Gordon's alive - Architect stuns Tavira
- Written by Paul Rees
Ricardo Bak Gordon - 'Contemporary domestic architecture in southern Portugal' may not have the ring of a stirring presentation. But those who listened to Ricardo Gordon on Saturday were stunned.
Head of Bak Gordon Associates in Lisbon, Ricardo Bak Gordon is a serial prize winner for his work, and on Thursday 14 July was in Barcelona to receive his latest award as top Iberian architect of the year, returning to Portugal on Friday so that he could to open his exhibition in Loule and to give a erudite and entertaining presentation in Tavira on Saturday 16 July on behalf of the Algarve History Association.
Ricardo Gordon showed how he views a site for a building from first introduction to the finished space. The constraints and the possibilities of the site, the wishes of the client, and the possibilities presented by the materials as well as the aesthetic on the design of the volume and the surfaces all play a part, even to the decision of where to place a window.
Algarve architecture of the 70s and 80s was seen as a dark period where local architects had lost the will to create and went for easy options when drawing up villas for the increasing amount of foreign home builders. We live with these standardised designs across the region and only recently have clients pushed for and obtained modern, eco-friendly and contemporary houses that are a study in good taste and sound architectural practice with soul.
Ricardo Gordon brought immense energy and creativity to his lecture and his clients attest that he brings much more to his creative work. It was said of Minister Eng. Duarte Pacheco, that human hurricane from the forties, that he brought poetry to his architecture. Ricardo Gordon is a successor to him in more ways than one.
In the audience were two clients, a British couple whose house in Quelfres was created 'despite not having The View, and Pedro Cabrita Reis, the internationally acclaimed installation artist whose twin houses north of Tavira serve as a stunning contemporary example of Ricardo's skills in blending the wishes of the client with the challenging hilltop locations for these two design masterpieces.
