Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on a topic of Portuguese architecture that is commonly characterized with the use of widely employed key terms such as modernism, regionalism and vernacular. It examines how tradition become wizardry for modern architecture did. Matters of national identity translated into architecture and tradition/modernity dualities have weighed on Portuguese culture throughout the century. The book examines how regional types were formulated in Portuguese metropolitan architecture and the links between this and other, peril-architectural, discourses. It exposes the circumstances behind the consolidation of a modernist take on regional architecture in Faro of the rise and popularization of a local Modernist Regionalism. Leeward Algarve Building sets out to study how local traditions were understood in modern-day building practices in a specific region.