{"word_count": 544, "character_count": 3698}
Fixing boundaries. Architecture and criticism at the onset of the 20th centuryRute Figueiredogta/D-ARCH/ETH Zurich, Director of the Site of Discourse Research Project (Lisbon University)During the last few years, there has been an increasing interest on the reflection about the disciplinary “position” of criticism within the architectural disciplinary field, as well as a widespread consensus that criticism tends to define itself by the using of methods and approaches that, also, belong to other fields of knowledge. This tendency has strongly questioned the notion of the intellectual and scientific disciplinary autonomy of criticism — a self-contained and self-regulated field, under its own laws ­— and has contributed to a suspicion about the sources of its “authority”.This paper will take the Portuguese architectural culture of the onset of the 20th century as a case study, to inquiry the regime of practices and discourses that distinguished the architectural criticism from the other kind of disciplinary fields, emphasizing the relevance of the architectural periodical press in the generation of criticism as an autonomous practice.When, at the end of 19th century, accompanying the broad phenomenon of eclecticism, architecture was forced to deal with the complex system of individual practices and stylistic schools, favouring the lost of something vital for the traditional process of work’s evaluation ­— the canon —, the Portuguese architectural discourse was still a vague practice, diffused in social, cultural and art criticism.It was the formation, in 1900, of the first magazine specifically dedicated to architecture and building construction — A Construção Moderna ­(1900-1919) — that endorsed the entry of criticism in the architect’s professional space. This gesture might be seen not only as the institution of a new instrument of mediation but, fundamentally, as an instance of disciplinary self-understanding and self-reflection. It was the crucial moment that allowed the rise of a mutually dependent condition between: the new architect’s professional identity; and the beginning of architectural criticism as an autonomous field.&#160;Rute Figueiredo is an architect and architectural historian (M.A. in Art History). She received her Ph.D. in History and Theory of Architecture at the ETH - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. Her research work has been focused on the architectural critical practice, as well as on the relationship between architecture and periodical press. Author of the book Architecture and Critical Discourse in Portugal 1893-1918 (Prize José Figueiredo’2008 awarded by the Portuguese National Academy of Fine Arts), she led, between 2012-2015, the R&#38;D project The Site of Discourse, sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, which privileged the study of Portuguese architectural periodical press, over the twenty-century. Rute has also been researching on the impact of cultural institutions, such as the Venice Biennale, in the experience, rhythms, and modes of architectural knowledge construction and communication today. She is finishing a book on the topic. Rute has held several research grants from the Swiss National Scientific Foundation and from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. She is a member of the European Architectural History Network, of the Society of Architectural Historians, and of the CEEA/Escola Superior de Artes Porto where she is a researcher of the HERA project MODSCAPES - Modernist Reinventions of the Rural Landscape. Currently, Rute is a research fellow at the Rennes 2 University, working on the project Mapping Architectural Criticism. &#160;