FERNANDO TÁVORA E A CONCINNITAS ALBERTIANA FERNANDO TÁVORA AND THE ALBERTIAN CONCINNITAS

In 1930, the German art historian Erwin Panofsky published a famous essay on the conception of the Gothic style during the Italian Renaissance entitled Das ErsteBlatt aus dem “Libro” Giorgio Vasaris; eine Studie über die Beurteilung der Gotik in der Italienischen Renaissance, taken up in 1955 in his collection of writings entitled Meaning in the visual arts. In this work, the German scholar reflects on some concepts that were the basis of the humanistic design on preexistence (in this case Gothic) and in particular on the term concinnitas, used in architecture for the first time by Leon Battista Alberti. Rereading this work for the umpteenth time, we came to think how its content could be useful for the notes that follow, providing a different interpretative key to the work of Fernando Távora. Like the Renaissance man, he also believes that looking back to the past is an intellectual act necessary for the construction of the future2 and therefore, without fetishisms of any kind, its production will be characterized by the continuous comparison with existing places and artifacts that will participate in the necessary becoming, a constant figure of a “real” which Távora investigates with empathy and amazement. The thought on the basis of his actions, his convictions and especially the ways he deals with what History gives us, share, in our view, many similarities with those of the Italian architects described by Panofsky and open new horizons of research and reflection on a central figure of the century that has just ended.