Rui Goes Ferreira

Rui Goes Ferreira (1926-1978) was born in Funchal, but graduated in Architecture in Porto, the city where he attended the School of Fine Arts and began practicing architecture as an intern at the atelier of Januário Godinho. He returned to Madeira in 1955, where he formed a “school-atelier” and linked Architecture with Urban Planning, Art and Society, developing an intense and diversified activity as an independent professional, teacher and promoter of cultural projects. It is in his homeland that his work will gain full expression. Attentive to the place, the urban and landscape context, his designs are in harmony with the model principles of modern architecture, but are also sensitive to the concerns and needs of a community with a unique character. Of his works, the following deserve being highlighted: the Economic Housings of the Federação das Caixas de Previdência in Funchal, with the collaboration of Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, the various projects for individual and collective housing units, such as Bairro dos Pescadores [Fishermen’s District] in Câmara de Lobos, the arrangement and proposal of a shelter to be built at the Viewpoint of Pico do Areeiro, the monitoring of the Master Plan for the City of Funchal, coordinated by José Rafael Botelho, and the cultural project of the TEMPO Decorative Arts Gallery, developed with the sculptor Amândio Souza. Two of his works were recently proposed for classification as “Sets of Public Interest”: Casa do Povo [House of the People] of Boaventura in São Vicente, a building that combines in an exemplary way the local constraints of the Madeira Island with the modern language, and Fábrica da Empresa de Cervejas da Madeira, a project that achieves the rare characteristic of attributing urbanity to an eminently industrial program.