Research Group
Research Group
Research Group
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies
Integrated Researcher
Ricardo Costa Agarez
research interests
Architecture, Architectural History, Architectural Theory, Housing, Construction History, Social History, Historiography
Short Bio
Ricardo Costa Agarez is an architect and architectural historian, specialised in the history and theory of 19th- and 20th-century cities and buildings, national and regional identities, knowledge dissemination and circulation of forms, ideas and techniques, housing and public architecture and the architectural culture in bureaucracy. He is currently senior researcher at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon; PI of projects ReARQ.IB - Built Environment Knowledge for Resilient, Sustainable Communities: Understanding Everyday Modern Architecture and Urban Design in the Iberian Peninsula (1939-1985) [ERC Starting Grant] e ArchNeed - The Architecture of Need: Community Facilities in Portugal 1945-1985 {FCT IC&DT]; and co-editor-in-chief of ABE Journal - Architecture Beyond Europe. His PhD dissertation (The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London) was awarded the RIBA President's Award for Research in 2013. The Giles Worsley Fellow of the British School at Rome (British Academy) in 2014, he was FWO Pegasus Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Ghent University in 2015 and, in 2016-2017, postdoctoral research fellow at KU Leuven.
research project at dinâmia'cet-Iscte
How can we manage, improve and develop resilient, sustainable communities, without a solid scientific knowledge of our built environment? Our everyday life is framed by a cohort of buildings about which we know very little, or nothing: they are outside of our cultural concerns, even though we reside, work, learn or convalesce in them. Understanding the architecture that shapes our everyday empowers our communities – it enables them to take informed decisions about what to preserve, reuse and replace; how to update and improve their buildings. At a time when resources are dwindling and must be used rationally, repurposing and retrofitting existing buildings is a priority over new construction, everywhere.ReARQ.IB bridges the gap between local communities in Spain and Portugal and their ‘architecture of proximity’ .
Main publications
2021. Agarez, R. Costa, R. Heynickx e E. Couchez (eds.). Architecture Thinking Across Boundaries: Knowledge Transfers Since the 1960s. London: Bloomsbury (ISBN 978-135-0153-17-2)
2020. Agarez, R. Costa “A Self-Conscious Architectural Historiography: Notes from (Post)Modern Portugal” in The Journal of Architecture, 25:8, 1089-1114.
2019. Agarez, R. “Philanthropy, Diplomacy and Built Environment Expertise at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the 1960s and 1970s” in The Journal of Architecture, 24:7, 950-981.
2020. Agarez, R. Costa. Habitação Apoiada em Portugal. Lisboa: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos (ISBN 978-989-8943-93-4).
2016. Agarez, R. Algarve Building: Modernism, Regionalism and Architecture in the South of Portugal, 1925-1965. Pref. Adrian Forty. Londres e Nova Iorque: Routledge (ISBN 978-1-4724-5684-7).
Main projects
2021-2026. ReARQ.IB – Built Environment Knowledge for Resilient, Sustainable Communities: Understanding Everyday Modern Architecture and Urban Design in the Iberian Peninsula (1939-1985), European Research Council ERC Starting Grant (GA949686)
2021-2024. ArchNeed - The Architecture of Need: Community Facilities in Portugal 1945-1985 (PTDC/ART-DAQ/6510/2020)
2022-2023. Inhabiting Siza: Residents’ Experience of Álvaro Siza’s Architecture and Micro-technologies (FCT ref. SIZA/UES/0020/2019)
2017-2018. Habitação: Cem Anos de Políticas Públicas em Portugal 1918-2018, Instituto da Habitação e da Reabilitação Urbana, IHRU
2017-2018. Art and Architecture Between Lisbon and Baghdad: The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Iraq, 1957-1973
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