Time and Recitation: part one. Álvaro Siza and “Piscinas das Marés”: From Paul Ricoeur’s title “Temps et récit”

Abstract

On the inevitability of a relation between Architecture and its cultural and social context, an investigation is being developed since the beginning of the 1990s, using an interpretive hermeneutics structure based on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin’s work, which is summarized by Tzvetan Todorov in his book The Dialogical Principle, demonstrates that a text – any cultural act produced by an author – can only be interpreted and understood through a dialogical analysis between the text and its cultural and social context. Methodologically, these studies’ reference is the work of Paul Ricoeur of the “Triple mimèsis”, consisting of three distinct phases: the elaboration of the architectural thought as a text, its concretion in building and its use and destination. Since a more extensive work on Social Housing in Portugal was carried between 1993 and 2000, this hermeneutic structure has been tested in different case studies. It is the case of this project/text of “Piscina das marés” (Porto, 1961/1966) that unveils an investigation work carried out through original interviews of Álvaro Siza about his project. The dialogical analysis of this work, essential to know Siza as an author, is presented throughout all the text in a creative writing manner, looking to test, in its poetical geometry, a relation between the figure of architecture and the poetical singularity of these swimming pools.

Key words: dialogy, mimesis, text, context.