The Archive as Project: Rethinking Pedagogy through Arch/ves

Abstract

In a context where the preservation and transformation of modern architectural heritage demand interdisciplinary approaches, the role of archives gains renewed centrality as a critical and operative device mediating between memory and design. This article reflects on the Architecture, Urbanism and Design Archives of Lisbon School of Architecture, University of Lisbon – arch/ves – as a strategic infrastructure reshaping architectural education, research, and culture. Comprising over 86 archival collections from architects active between the 19th and 21st centuries, arch/ves holds a diverse programmatic, technical, and ideological legacy that both traverses and problematizes the Modern Movement in Portugal.

By making this heritage accessible and open to interrogation, the Archive transcends its preservational function and becomes an epistemological and pedagogical platform for the critical reinvention of design processes. In this light, initiatives such as the From Arch/ves to Project design studios, and graduate research projects demonstrate the Archive’s role as a true laboratory of modernity. Through the analysis of collections such as those of Carlos Ramos, Francisco Conceição Silva, and Pancho Guedes, the article explores how modern legacies can be critically reactivated as contemporary design tools, rooted in the material and intellectual memory of the 20th century while addressing today’s cultural, social, and environmental challenges.

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of the Archaeology of Knowledge, the Archive is interpreted as a discursive field in which disciplinary genealogies are deconstructed and new project-based epistemologies are activated. Beyond its pedagogical dimension, arch/ves is examined as infrastructure for architectural and urban reuse through actions such as exhibitions, seminars, masterclasses and publications. Case studies like the Modern Football Stadiums of Lisbon reveal integrated methodologies of archival research, morphological analysis, and tectonic critique. The article concludes that, when articulated with teaching, research, and critical curation, the Archive emerges as a space of convergence between memory and innovation, permanence and transformation – a critical horizon for 21st century Architecture.