The problem of identity in architecture towards globalization: the experience of the house in Moledo by Eduardo Souto Moura

Abstract

Globalization creates cultural comes-and-goes around the world, promoting transitory, ephemeral and floating identities that we may call “hybrid identities”, which become the major characteristic of our contemporary world. So how do we deal with the huge pressure of worldwide architectural context whilst preserving our own character? What can we do to claim the diversity of architectural culture and the maintenance of local traditions? What methodological tools are available to avoid the alienation of nowadays’ architects from their traditions for the sake of genuine architecture? By analyzing the House in Moledo we’ll reflect on the identity of Portuguese traditional architecture and the way Souto Moura faces this topic. The houses he designs are the result of a long and arduous process of analysis, refinement and decision. It can be interpreted as a set of variations on a theme, like Mies van der Rohe did, resulting in a simplicity that isn’t easy to achieve. By observing the evolution of his research, it seems obvious that it comes down to a kind of pattern that reveals a specific typology. But what does it have to do with local architecture? In this house, six tons of stone were used in blind side walls, erected with irregular blocks of granite anchored in dry, supporting the place’s high demanding along a vast expanse of a steep hillside overlooking the Atlantic coastline through its terraced agricultural banks. By sustaining an outcropping of rock in the back of the house as an extra visual reaffirming, plus the link between the environment and the interior of the house, he praises the masonry work as the main value of its architecture. But is this enough to define it as Portuguese architecture? Through this experience, which achieved a harmonic architectural balance and its worldwide recognition as a farsighted case-study, we intend to reflect on the direct effects globalization induces on the local cultural identity, and the challenges we’re facing.