José Carlos Loureiro

José Carlos Loureiro was born in 1925, in Covilhã. In 1946 he finished the Special Course in Architecture at ESBAP, having been awarded the Carlos Ramos Prize. In 1947 he received the prize from the Portuguese Industrial Association. That same year he was part of the group of architects that founded ODAM [Organization of Modern Architects]. In 1950, together with Fernando Távora, he was invited by Carlos Ramos to a teaching position at ESBAP, which he held until 1972. In 1991 he returned to teaching at FAUP on the subject of Construction. A central figure in the struggle for the affirmation of Modern Architecture, José Carlos Loureiro developed a long and continuous professional practice, which extends from the end of the 1940s to the second decade of the 21st century. He has always defended that architecture should serve people as best as possible, providing them with spaces of comfort and happiness. He is the author of iconic works with a strong urban presence and in which contemporaneity and constructive knowledge is well reflected, such as the Sports Pavilion project (awarded an honorable mention at the Exhibition of the XV Olympiad in Helsinki and with which he participated in the Biennial of São Paulo), the Parnaso Building (1954) Hotel D. Henrique (1966) in the city of Porto, the house he designed for himself (1949) or the Júlio Resende House-Atelier (1962) in Gondomar, among hundreds of works in various parts of the country, but with a particular presence in the North of the country. At the same time, he participated in the Congress of UIA (International Union of Architects) in Lisbon (1953), the Exhibition of Portuguese Architecture in London (1956) and the Contemporary Portuguese Architecture in Washington (1958). He also held several important positions, including councilor of the Municipal Council of Porto (1972-74), and vice-president of the Association of Portuguese Architects (1987), and received multiple awards and distinctions, such as gold medals of the cities of Porto (2009) and Gondomar (2017), having been distinguished as an honorary member of the Order of Architects in 2012.