Últimas with 55 photo essays .

Welcome to the second issue of ÚLTIMAS. This is a special edition for us for various reasons. First of all, we have now made an additional 30 of the latest works available (for a total of 55), clearly establishing ourselves as the principle and only free access image bank of contemporary architecture in Portugal. This second issue of the newsletter is also an occasion to present the first two publications by FG + SG – L ivros de Imagem and to reveal a scholarly exercise based on the images of Fernando Guerra.

The aim of this ambitious project is quite clear: to disseminate all of the work our studio regularly develops in the area of architectural photography and now in the publishing world as well. In addition, we are attempting to innovate and offer the convenience of providing a virtual shop for the sale of our publications. At present, we are preparing some new items in this area for a future edition of ÚLTIMA.

Thanks for visiting and happy reading!

New photo essays at www.ultimasreportagens.com

The last special dossier of the Spanish architectural magazine 2CDossier – “Portugal 2000 – 2005” – shows 25 national architectural projects, nine of which have been photographed by Fernando Guerra. All of these essays have been available for some months now on ultimasreportagens.com

Featured pieces:

ARX Portugal Regional Blood Centre Porto
as* Central Library of the University of the Azores Ponta Delgada
António Belém Lima Conservatório Regional de Música Vila Real
M. Graça Dias, Egas J. Vieira with G. Afonso Dias Teatro Azul Almada
Paulo David Casa das Mudas Calheta Madeira
Jorge Figueira Home in Vila Real
Paulo Gouveia Home in Sintra
Promontório Arquitectos Dolce Vita Shopping center Miraflores
Nuno Brandão Costa Home in Afife Viana do Castelo

Images were also taken for the following projects referenced in the editorial by Ana Vaz Milheiro: CVDB (Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay) _ Cartaxo Cinema | Promontório Arquitectos _Carnide Housing Block, Lisbon | MGD.EJV _Housing Estate Salgueiral-Sul, Guimarães

Casas Contemporâneas
 

“If on the one hand, the answers to questions of living try to satisfy the increasingly accelerated rhythms and mechanisms that cause society to evolve, on the other, the materialization of these instincts clashes with unsuitable conceptual perceptions at its source, because they are unrecognizable, something that could occur naturally through a process of massification of architectural image-icons until the I is touched by that other that until then had remained strange.”

José Manuel das Neves

On 9 November, the publisher Editora Caeidoscópio launched the book “Casas Contemporâneas” in Lisbon. This book presents ten photo essays by Fernando Guerra on works from architects Francisco Aires Mateus and Manuel Aires Mateus, João Mendes Ribeiro and Nuno Brandão Costa, among others.

Featured pieces:
Francisco Aires Mateus + Manuel Aires Mateus Melides
Frederico Valsassina Sintra
Jennifer Pereira + Miguel Costa + Rogério Inácio Faro
João Mendes Ribeiro Cortegaça
Jorge Figueira Vila Real
José Carlos Cruz + Pedro Alarcão Porto
José Guedes Cruz Cascais
Nuno Mateus + José Mateus Ericeira
Nuno Brandão Costa Afife
Vera Alves + Cristóvão Ferreira Aroeira

Fernando Guerra Exhibition in Porto

Architecture through the Objective of Fernando Guerra.
After passing through Lisbon and Coimbra, the Fernando Guerra exhibition has now come to Porto. The collection centers on recent works, focusing on 4 years of architecture in Portugal. Works by Álvaro Siza, Manuel Salgado and Gonçalo Byrne are represented among others. The exhibition is open to the public Monday to Friday through November in the gallery of the new Colorfoto shop on Rua Sá da Bandeira, 526.

The publisher FG +SG – Livros de Imagem is now launching its first two books. The idea for this collection centers on the publication of books on architectural photography in which each issue is dedicated exclusively to one work. Besides the images of Fernando Guerra, the books also include small critical notes from other authors and testimonials by the architects themselves. Bringing together the eyes of a photographer and architect, Fernando Guerra’s images always seek to offer a rigorous reading of the work with due attention to the project. Perusing the images in the book through his eyes, one gains new perspectives capable of causing us to reflect on the architectures such perspectives represent.

01 Turcifal Spirituality Centre | RRJ Arquitectos
50 pages, 13x18cm | release and distribution: November 2005

photography Fernando Guerra photographic production Sérgio Guerra texts Álvaro Bizarro, N. Miguel Seabra, RRJ Arquitectos design FG +SG co-ordination Ricardo França publication FG+SG Livros de imagem date November 2005

Excerpt from the book:

Earth and Spirit

The photographs of the work presented represent in plastic form the intention for the space: each individual’s encounter with the mystery of Light through the path of silence. The careful soberness of the materials, the simplicity of the unrepeated forms, the light that enters at all hours, illuminating without harming the interior space, offer to whomever uses the space the search for peace, pureness of heart, desired Light, as a source more characteristic of Man (…) The work is part of a living agricultural context, without complexes, elegant in its dialogue with the environment, where Earth and Spirit unite in a fertile embrace.

Cónego Álvaro Bizarro

02 Vila Real Regional Music Conservatory| António Belém Lima
106 pages, 13x18cm | release and distribution: November 2005

photography Fernando Guerra photographic production Sérgio Guerra texts Jorge Figueira, João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, António Belém Lima, Tomás Espírito Santo design FG +SG co-ordination Ricardo França publication FG+SG Livros de imagem date November 2005

Excerpts from the book:

(...) Along the Avenida, through a fictionalized arch, we reach the stranded car that allows us to reach the Conservatory. An opening, terribly horizontal and modern, allows the building’s light to reach the stones of the church, lending texture to its imperfections. A vertical body reveals the entrance and two curved lanterns suggest the boat-like movement that Belém Lima always strives for. The building’s internal organization tries to foretell the body of the São Domingos Convent without uncovering its face. In fact, the face has been lost. The rehearsal room occupies the central and uncertain part of the cloister with the construction of rooms around it. The Conservatory is a reconstruction made from small vestiges, almost shadows that imagine themselves to be ruins. (…)

Jorge Figueira

(…) I did not attend any auditions in this room. The only instrument present was the piano. A black cloth covered it. Yet the room gave off a simultaneous climate of rationality and emotion. A character with nothing in common with current sensations or daily impressions. It was more. It was the addition of an established possibility of music, its deep balance between man and time. As if all those descending to this larger studio were preparing for their classes, their studies, their extended rehearsals, their doubts and intensities and, under the new order of a word were waiting for the signal, a gesture from the first violinist, the rhythmic beat of an intimate and inaudible metronome. I don’t know how to be more precise. This was the sensation I felt, brought forth without a single sound being played and without any players in the auditorium. On all of this António Belém Lima worked. (…)

João Miguel Fernandes Jorge

This new collection FG+SG Livros de Imagem can now be purchased online.

You may order one or both issues for a special pre-release in our shop .

PeterZumthor Thermal Vals | vals Switzerland