Pedro Leão Neto - Contemporary Photography: Architecture, City and Territory
"Pedro Leão Neto (Porto, 1962) is an architect and a faculty member of the School of Architecture at the University of Porto (FAUP), where he is also the coordinator of the research group Centro de Comunicacao e Representacao Espacial (CCRE). Pedro holds an MA from the in architecture from the University of Porto (1997) and a PhD from the University of Manchester (2002). He has curated several exhibitions on architectural photography and international seminars, namely ‘On the Surface’, now in its fourth edition (2016). Pedro is the coordinator of the SCOPIO editorial line, which is focused on documentary and artistic photography related to architecture."
Neto visited the University of Liverpool as a guest lecturer as part of the guest lecture series of the School of Architecture at UoL, to speak about how photography can be used as an instrument to communicate architecture.
The aim of the lecture was to communicate the broader context of Scopio, which creates a series of publications in magazine and book format, as well as a photographic archive online, providing information on architecture and the public spaces in Portugal. The work is developed with the support of the research group CCRE – FAUP and in partnership with Porto Town Hall, Department of Culture.
So here they are using 'image' as an architectural communication tool. Calling attention for places and spaces gone to war, to, of course, having energetic vantage points to creating visual chronicles of visiting different cities, different spaces and studies of how you understand architecture through image and photography, this lecture developed my understanding towards how I can use photography as a medium and what that can do.
The presentation talked about students’ projects, their work and how they are related to Architecture course and secondly about the research group, their most significant and important work. In global terms, all the work that they do relates to architecture, art and image.
A brief explanation of what the basic interests of the tutors are:
Focus of early design process; whether you are testing ideas, or you have a program, how you relate this architectural program to form and space, how you choose the different levels of representation methods in terms of abstract reality, how to use efficient visual diagrams and finally we are focused and interested on how we can use photography image as a design instrument, to explore and understand a critical stance to where you are designing.
After this, in communication photography the focus is really on photography. The exercise is to create a visual narrative that, in a certain way, reflects the poetics, the ideas and the concepts of their design proposal, while at the same time, the space where they are proposing to design. This is in book format, that are able to communicate our critical artistic stance in relation to the city, to architecture and to the territory.
The students have to think of one image that is going to mark their design proposal, the identity, the big idea.
In one case the architectural program was a learning centre and they had to think about multimedia spaces, group-work and different ways of how technology would interact with the people, while the building already exists in a part of the city, where they had this reference of a central space and stairs that gave access to all the different levels and it’s also a very important reference of the city.
They are able to do this in book-format in 10-12 minutes so it has to be very effective. So they choose their 3D or 2D abstract representations and visual diagrams, the lettering, the colours, everything – all thoughts in communicating quickly their design proposal, in a common matrix. They have the freedom to do it in different covers and such formats.
The learning centre in this case was inside a botanical garden and here they are building a visual narrative where they do not only give their understanding of what would be the optimum architectural promenade for the garden and atmosphere of the environment, they also do a simulation of the design proposal, establishing the relationship with the territory. These different supports should be used for communicating architecture as they are very critical.
The students can explore the relationships and possibilities of the aspects that you also think when you are designing in architecture: scale, diversity, territory; but you do it through photography image, relating with the experience.
Also another very important characteristic is that they are encouraged to use fictional or artistic strategies in their photography. So you can do it in any way without any artistic, digital manipulation and they can place objects or artefacts or change the actual representation of space by adding light sources, or you can do it deliberately by the vantage point, creating their chosen designed environment.
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The objective of one student was to prove that this visual narrative could show first of all the topographically strong connection between sea and island, (an island in the Atlantic of Portugal) and how this is translated in some way in vernacular architecture, criticizing thus some futuristic projects on the island. There are some interventions that seem to be integrated. During the lecture we were shown a ruin of vernacular architecture where not only the materials belong to the island but for example this state has to do with raining a lot and also at the same time he is communicating the sensibility of his approach to the island. So you get familiarised with the visual grammar of photography so that you can create your speech and that’s the challenge to use this powerful instrument.
Illuminations
Fictional artistic strategies where the strategy was based on some botanical gardens that are centred in a 'refuge' idea with a romantic atmosphere which exists inside the city. The student plays with the slide which of course doesn't exist, adding a lit window of light in the photograph, calling the attention of the environment calling attention out to the urban triangle as a refuge and questioning some of the energy that these works have.
Also it is a way it’s inherited in photography that always calls the attention. If you use it to erect the question, then it’s effective and you create your narrative. This is another work, from a dissertation of a German student for understanding people and creating knowledge of connections. It’s very important that you think what is the story, feeling the space as architects, understanding the materiality and here they are taking advantage of this multi-layered and rich aspects of nature. To count upon it saying that this exists in the urban settings that is always a kind of refuge that you wouldn't guess about it, giving a glimpse of the outside, acting as a filter between the boundaries. We believe the narratives should be autonomous, not needing a text, self-explanatory, although they are followed by a text, that is important to read after the pictures.
Furthermore, SCOPIO is a network for the students with an international portfolio, for example Erasmus students. They begin with portraits asking them to not think of anything. So this blank thing gives a common matrix in relation to the human scale, using this strategy to gain a psychological approach to the portrait, more powerful than the traditional approach. So nowadays we are very attached to the printed publications with the editorial, appreciated as much as the digital world.
So this platform is linking teaching and establishing a bridge to the research. We have a research group and its most important lines are city sculpture and culture.
The interaction between these and the editorial groups makes it different between the rest of the groups in Portugal. The international conferences that take place are published within photography and architecture connecting the two universes. Understanding architecture and how it is built, how cities mark the territory and how architecture covers several topics: political, cultural, social. How do we personalize space in groups or individually. In these conferences there are different tables concerned with different issues with people outside the world of architecture and of course people from within the world of architecture with understanding of history.
Valerio Olgiati asked a series of non architects to choose an image which had some significant sense in their work, something that incorporates an experience, an idea whilst he was showing an image with an idyllic scenario. It seems fiction but it’s not. It’s the light and the vantage point that he is using, he is making you see what he is questioning. This makes the message stronger.