Research Group
Research Group
Research Group
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies
Integrated Researcher

Leonor Matos Silva
research interests
Short Bio
Leonor Matos Silva received a PhD in Architecture (2019) from ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon under a scholarship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-Portugal) with a thesis about the teaching of architecture in its pre- vs post-revolutionary form (the Lisbon case) and the interplay between architecture school and its cultural milieu. She is an Integrated Researcher and a member of the Scientific Council of DINÂMIA’CET – Centre for the Study of Socioeconomic Change and the Territory (ISCTE-IUL). She also holds an Integrated MA in Architecture (2011) and a six-year degree (pre-Bologna) in interior architecture (2004) from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon (FAUL). Co-PI of the funded R&D exploratory project “WomArchStruggle – Women Architects in Former Portuguese Colonial Africa: Gender and Struggle for Professional Recognition (1953–1985)” and a former post-doctoral research fellow and researcher within the funded R&D project “MCMH – Middle-Class Mass Housing in Europe, Africa and Asia”. Her scientific output includes authoring articles in journals and chapters in books, presenting at conferences, and editing journals and books. Member of the COST-Action “Making Young Researchers’ Voices Heard for Gender Equality (VOICES)” [CA 20137], as well as the COST-Action “European Middle-Class Mass Housing (MCMH-EU)” [CA 18137], wherein she held a Grant Holder Manager position. She was also responsible for the coordination of the international conference Optimistic Suburbia 2 (16–19 June 2021, ISCTE-IUL). She has been commissioned to work on the funded R&D project “Coast to Coast – Late Portuguese Infrastructural Development in Continental Africa (Angola and Mozambique)”. Additionally, she was invited to join the research group “What Education? Architecture, Teaching and Research” in the funded R&D project “(EU)ROPA Rise of Portuguese Architecture” (CES-University of Coimbra). Leonor Matos Silva cooperates with the FAUL under a nominal agreement for the research and disclosure of its pedagogical archives (Informed Consent, dated 1 September 2019).
research project at dinâmia'cet-Iscte
Women architects in former Portuguese colonial Africa: gender and struggle for professional recognition (1953-1985) (2022.01720.PTDC)
Main publications
"Women Architects graduated in Porto (E(S)BAP/FAUP) and the Portuguese colonial Africa". Colonial and Postcolonial Landscapes conference Proceedings (2023)
"Shrinking the plan. A middle-class wishful thinking in the outskirts of Lisbon". Optimistic Suburbia 2 conference Proceedings, pp. 61-75 (2021)
"Team 10, Lisbon, 1981. The lost meeting". Joelho, Architecture Culture (journal) n. 10, pp. 100-116 (2019)
"The EAAE and the Lisbon School of Architecture - a common history between 1976 and 1986". Architectural Research Addressing Societal Challenges, pp.1215-1222. UK: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis (book) (2017)
"Recording the optimistic. An audiovisual approach to the city of Lisbon by its architecture school in the 1980s". Cities, Communities and Territories (journal), n. 33, pp. 144-157 (2016)
Main projects
Middle-Class Mass Housing in Europe, Africa and Asia (PTDC/ART-DAQ/30594/2017)
COST-Action "European Middle-class Mass Housing (MCMH-EU)" [CA18137]
Coast to Coast. Late Portuguese Infrastructural Development in Continental Africa (Angola and Mozambique): Critical and Historical Analysis and Postcolonial Assessment (PTDC/ATP-AQI/0742/2014)
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