ABSTRACT

This article will be focused on the Portuguese city, between the 1930s and the 1960s. Its approach will rely on the most important Portuguese architecture magazines of that period. It will be also taken into account the fact that professionals and academics were then unaware of any theoretical question. In spite of such lack of theoretical concerns, the spread of knowledge regarding international trends was only possible through the pages of that kind of publications, considering its large impact among architects and urban planners. It will be also taken into consideration that that kind of publications reflected, almost in real time, the relevance given to the published themes and subjects.

This article aims, therefore, to go deep into the debate about the Portuguese culture regarding urban design. The article goal is to find out if themes published by those magazines gave a contribution to the disciplinary debate. In other words, could they have contributed for overcoming the theoretical absence among architects, which was undeniable within the considered period? In short, how did urban design ideas evolved between the 1930s and the 1960s in Portugal, under the ideas spread through the architecture magazines?