Fundação do Oriente, Lisbon, 11 October 2025

Docomomo Portugal is pleased to share that its chair professor Ana Tostões will hold a conference next Saturday, October 11 at Fundação do Oriente at 15H00.

Titled “Da paisagem à arquitectura – o caminho de Fernando Távora em 1960 no Japão” [From landscape to architecture – Fernando Távora’s journey to Japan in 1960] the conference aims to show results from professor Ana Tostões’ the trip to Japan in 2024 supported by the Oriente Foundation through a short-term research grant to redo Fernando Távora’s trip.

Fernando Távora (1923–2006) rediscovered in Japan the intensity of history and the search of truth to “arrive at solutions of eternity”. The experience of modularity, the deep sense of minimal culture, the art of the “empty space,” abstraction, and free flow are some of the themes of the Japanese contribution to the development of modern architecture.

Aiming to analyze the dialogue between Japanese and Portuguese architecture based on the Travel Diary [written and drawn by Fernando Távora during his trip to Japan in May 1960], the conference is structured in two parts:
– The first follows Távora’s path, focusing on traditional Japanese architecture in relation to the modern metropolis.
– The second part, starting from the generation of modern Japanese architects, interprets the way Yayoi tradition is incorporated into the built landscape. The aim is to analyze different historical moments, reflect on how the landscape is created in a balance between the natural and the constructed, and understand how “the great charm lies in the whole house-garden,” as Távora wrote.

The entrance is free, however registration is needed via: cursos.conferencias@foriente.pt

More information at Fundação do Oriente’s website: here