Tag: Ana Vaz MIlheiro

  • Fernão Lopes Simões de Carvalho (1929-2026), crónica de um arquitecto vulgar

    Fernão Lopes Simões de Carvalho (1929-2026), crónica de um arquitecto vulgar

    Newspaper Article (In memoriam)

    Fernão Lopes Simões de Carvalho (1929-2026), crónica de um arquitecto vulgar

    Author: Ana Vaz Milheiro

    Newspaper: Journal Público

    Date: 9 September 2026

    Summary

    “A morte do arquitecto e urbanista nascido em Luanda encerra o capítulo do último elo directo português ao atelier parisiense de Le Corbusier. Tinha 96 anos.

    O arquitecto e urbanista Fernão Lopes Simões de Carvalho, porventura uma das figuras mais singulares e incompreendidas do século XX português, morreu esta terça-feira, aos 96 anos. A notícia foi anunciada pela Fundação Marques da Silva, que detém o seu espólio desde 2021. É difícil definir o lugar justo a que pertencia. Nascido a 27 de Outubro de 1929, em Luanda, Angola, no arranque do Estado Novo, o seu percurso profissional levá-lo-ia a trabalhar em três continente – África, América do Sul e Europa -, uma condição decorrente do contexto histórica e colonial português.”

    “The death of the architect and urban planner born in Luanda brings to a close the chapter of the last direct Portuguese connection to Le Corbusier’s Parisian atelier. He was 96.

    Architect and urban planner Fernão Lopes Simões de Carvalho, arguably one of the most distinctive and underappreciated figures of twentieth-century Portuguese architecture, died on Tuesday at the age of 96. The news was announced by the Marques da Silva Foundation, which has held his archive since 2021. His precise place within the history of Portuguese architecture is difficult to define. Born on 27 October 1929 in Luanda, Angola, at the beginning of the Estado Novo, his professional trajectory would take him across three continents—Africa, South America, and Europe—in a career deeply shaped by the historical and colonial circumstances of Portugal.”

    Read the full article here.

  • ‘Em que material quer que seja feito?’ Considerações sobre operariado, materiais e sistemas construtivos em Cabo Verde

    ‘Em que material quer que seja feito?’ Considerações sobre operariado, materiais e sistemas construtivos em Cabo Verde

    Lecture

    ‘Em que material quer que seja feito?’ Considerações sobre operariado, materiais e sistemas construtivos em Cabo Verde

    Author: Ana Vaz Milheiro

    Course: Estudio Praia — Projecto Final de Arquitectura Iscte

    Date: 25 September 2026

    Summary

    The open lecture “What Material Should It Be Made Of? Considerations on Labour, Materials and Construction Systems in Cape Verde” explored the relationship between construction technologies, local labour, materials and architectural practices in Cape Verde. Taking as a starting point the tension between imported technologies and local construction knowledge, the lecture questioned whether technological transfers enabled local workers or instead reinforced forms of foreign dependency.

    Drawing on archival research, photographs and architectural projects from the colonial and post-independence periods, the lecture examined housing, urbanisation and public buildings across the islands of Santiago and São Vicente, among others. Particular attention was given to the work of architects Maria Emília Caria and António Saragga Seabra, as well as to the materials and building practices documented in their surveys and projects. The lecture also reflected on how similar materials could produce different architectural forms and materialities, and on the continued exchange between local and intercontinental architectural models in contemporary Cape Verde.

    Image Credits: António Saragga Seabra com Maria Emília Caria, Relatório de Missão do Grupo de Trabalho de Urbanismo e Habitação da Província de Cabo Verde III vol, 1965. AHU, IPAD 7203

  • Surveying the Colonial Islands: Maria Emília Caria in Cape Verde During the Liberation Wars (1961– 74)

    Surveying the Colonial Islands: Maria Emília Caria in Cape Verde During the Liberation Wars (1961– 74)

    Journal Article


    Surveying the Colonial Islands: Maria Emília Caria in Cape Verde During the Liberation Wars (1961– 74) 

    Journal: Fabrications, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand 
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro

    Date: 2026

    Fabrications, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2026.2672911
    Maria Emília Caria, Fonte Filipe, “Mindelo, São Vicente,” in Report of the Urban Planning and Housing Working Group Mission to Cape Verde, vol. 3, 2nd dossier, 1964. AHU/DSUH series, item 2130/07204. 

    Summary

    This article focuses on the experience of Maria Emília Caria, a Portuguese architect who worked for more than a decade in the archipelago of Cape Verde, one of Portugal’s five African colonies, until 1975. The study is based on archival documents, oral histories, and fieldwork, to address the scarcity of sources often characteristic of research on professional women. The article discusses how gender influenced Caria’s performance as an architect, and how the confinement of her work to a marginal territory in the Portuguese colonial context ultimately allowed her to play an influential and autonomous role. Caria’s main period of activity coincided with Colonial or Liberation Wars (1961–74), which, although not directly affecting Cape Verde, would influence both so-called “welfare programmes” and access to public and private investment. The state of extreme deprivation and precariousness of these islands would ultimately affect Caria’s urban planning proposals and, consequently, their eventual failure. 

    Access the article here.

    Cover image: Maria Emília Caria, Urbanisation Project for the City of Mindelo – Island of São Vicente, Cape Verde, 1969. Stored at the Instituto do Arquivo Nacional de Cabo Verde, Praia, box no. 1673. Photograph of archival record by Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2025. 

  • The Salazar Foundation’s Private Housing Assistance in Africa During Late Portuguese Colonial Rule (1969–78)

    The Salazar Foundation’s Private Housing Assistance in Africa During Late Portuguese Colonial Rule (1969–78)

    Journal Article

    The Salazar Foundation’s Private Housing Assistance in Africa During Late Portuguese Colonial Rule (1969–78)

    Journal: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians  85 (2): 253–274.
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro

    Date: 2026

    Caputo neighborhood, former Salazar Foundation neighborhood, Luanda, Angola, 1974 (author’s photo, 2024).
    Outskirts of the Craveiro Lopes neighborhood, former Salazar Foundation neighborhood, Praia, Cabo Verde (author’s photo, 2025).

    Summary

    The Fundação Salazar, or Salazar Foundation, was a private agency set up in the late 1960s to build assisted housing for the “economically weak” urban and rural populations across Portugal and former African and Asian territories under Portuguese rule (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor). It developed small-scale neighborhoods using consistent programmatic typologies (collective four-story blocks in urban/suburban locations and single-family houses in rural or peri-urban areas). By 1978, when the Salazar Foundation was dissolved, it had built neighborhoods in twenty-four Portuguese cities and nineteen former colonial regions, with a total of 2,067 housing units. This article examines the foundation’s activities, which were supported at the highest levels of metropolitan and colonial powers and also became the subject of political propaganda. It questions the housing program as a key strategy of the Portuguese rule to control populations and delay their potential involvement in the anticolonial struggle.

    Read the full article here.

  • Villagisation and Military Agency in Late-Colonial Africa: A Comparative Study of Guinea- Bissau and Mozambique (1968-1974)

    Villagisation and Military Agency in Late-Colonial Africa: A Comparative Study of Guinea- Bissau and Mozambique (1968-1974)

    Communication

    Villagisation and Military Agency in Late-Colonial Africa: A Comparative Study of Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (1968-1974) 

    Event: The Military History Consortium Conference

    Author: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Francesca Vita

    Date: 4 May 2026

    Location: Sciences Po Aix, Aix-en-Provence

    Cuntima strategic village, Guinea-Bissau [PT/AHU]
    Candodo village, Mozambique [PT/AHU]

    Summary

    This paper focuses on the villagisation programs implemented during the final years of the liberation war in Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, examining the involvement of the army in regrouping local population by constructing new settlements and infrastructures as a tactic of war. The villagisation plans in Guinea-Bissau and in the Tete Region of Mozambique occurred simultaneously (1968-c.1974), affecting rural areas characterised by low population density and subsistence agriculture. However, the role of the army in carrying out these programs differed significantly in terms of implementation, materialisation and outcomes. In Guinea-Bissau, villagisation was almost entirely directed by the army, with minimal support from civil authorities. As a result, the process followed military procedures, leading to the standardisation of building techniques, materials, and housing layouts. The hierarchical structure of military organisation, directly depended on the general governor, shaped both decision-making and execution, adjusting construction options with military logistical needs. In contrast, in the Tete Region, villagisation resulted from the simultaneous intervention of multiple actors – both civil and military – each pursuing their own agendas and mobilising their own resources. This overlapping of authorities diluted military centralisation and generated more heterogeneous settlement layouts and housing typologies, producing also greater variability in building materials and techniques. Through a comparative analysis of these two cases, grounded in archival research in both civil and military archives in Portugal, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, this paper contributes to understanding how military organisation operated on the ground and how military and civil strategies became intertwined to consolidate control and secure local support. It highlights how differing degrees of military hierarchy and centralisation shaped the choice of construction systems, settlement layout, building materials, housing typologies and ultimately the reordering of rural populations.

  • Villages as Construction Sites. Recording Compulsory Settlement in the Zambezi Valley Through Aerial Photographs, Mozambique (1970–1974)

    Villages as Construction Sites. Recording Compulsory Settlement in the Zambezi Valley Through Aerial Photographs, Mozambique (1970–1974)

    Journal Article

    Villages as Construction Sites. Recording Compulsory Settlement in the Zambezi Valley Through Aerial Photographs, Mozambique (1970–1974)

    Journal: Ædificare, Revue internationale d’histoire de la construction, 2025 – 2, n. 18 [Construction Site Photography]
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro

    Editors: Laurence Heindryckx, Tom Broes, Simon De Nys-Ketels, and Robby Fivez
    Publication: Garnier Classics, 2026

    Estima. Construction of a school. General view of the village. Sector B – Rural Redevelopment. Subsect. 11. July/1974 [96/7/74] Zambezi Plan Office. Photographic archive [AHU, PT/IPAD/MU/GM/GPZ/2332/07236]
    Pandira village. Municipality of Barué – Vila Gouveia. Sector D – Subsector 8-17. May/1973 [99/5/73] Zambezi Plan Office. Photographic archive [AHU, PT/IPAD/MU/GM/GPZ/2332/07236].

    Summary

    The forced resettlement in the Zambezi Valley in the province of Tete brought together military and economic interests to serve the extension of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique. It was set up during the Colonial War (1964-1974) as a means of halting the progress of the Mozambique Liberation Movement (FRELIMO), but also because of the launch of the Cabora Bassa dam’s construction.

    Although this construction produced one of the most complex construction sites in Portuguese colonial history, the focus of this analysis is on the colossal resettlement operation associated with its completion, as a double consequence of the reservoir and the war. The dynamics of territorial reordering, which began in 1968, transformed a region of around 100,724 square kilometers into a huge construction site of fluctuating intensity. Building systems that had been practiced in the region for centuries coexisted with new technologies resulting from the influx of industrial materials, creating a “creolized” rural landscape.

    To document the process, around 400 photographs were taken, many of them from helicopters or planes, reinforcing a view of a subalternized reality through a uniform and orthogonal layout that contrasted with the pre-colonial segmented landscape. The five photographs that make up this essay are part of this group of aerial photographs and have been titled in sequence: Foundation; Surveillance; Polyphony; Order; Skilled. Taken as an “bird’s-eye view”, they not only allowed to follow the perspective of the colonial authorities, avoiding direct contact with the population, but also to grasp the simultaneity of tasks in the construction of a village.

    One wonders about absence (Foliard, 2023): at no point did the camera stray into explicit violence. Contrary to the written documentation that also listed these operations, figurative evidence was denied for events such as the destruction of ancestral settlements or the frequent resistance to being an “aldeado”.

    Read the full article here.

  • The Technical Gaze. Exploring Photographic Dissonances and Colonial Narratives in the Mabubas Dam, Angola, 1948–1954

    The Technical Gaze. Exploring Photographic Dissonances and Colonial Narratives in the Mabubas Dam, Angola, 1948–1954

    Journal Article

    The Technical Gaze. Exploring Photographic Dissonances and Colonial Narratives in the Mabubas Dam, Angola, 1948–1954

    Journal: Ædificare, Revue internationale d’histoire de la construction, 2025 – 2, n. 18 [Construction Site Photography]
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro; Beatriz Serrazina

    Editors: Laurence Heindryckx, Tom Broes, Simon De Nys-Ketels, and Robby Fivez
    Publication: Garnier Classics, 2026

    Group of four houses for single workers [top right, a child laying bricks on the side wall of the house], Mabubas, 1948 [AHU, OP3010].
    Diversion tunnel; underwater works, Mabubas, Angola, 1951 [AHU, Inspection Report, OP3010]

    Summary

    The Mabubas Dam, built in Angola between 1948 and 1954, was the first major infrastructure project promoted by the Portuguese state in Africa. It was designed to bolster colonialism against the growing criticism after World War II. Located near the country’s capital, Luanda, the dam’s sheer size—70 meters in length—transformed the area into a bustling, dynamic construction site. This project involved thousands of people, multiple tasks, and complex labor interactions.

    This article delves into two illustrated reports written by Portuguese engineers at different stages of the dam’s construction, offering a unique insight into the project’s evolution and the contrasting perspectives of the experts involved. While their technical expertise was paramount, their observations reveal a more complex and often conflicting narrative about the colonial enterprise. The first report, dating from 1948, included a series of monthly accounts and emphasized the technological advancements and ‘modernity’ of the dam endeavor. The second report, written in 1949, shifts focus to the daily realities of the construction site, providing a more nuanced, and arguably more critical, view of the project’s socio-spatial dimensions.

    These materials reveal interactions, conflicts, and contradictions arising from different actors and agendas. In particular, the photographs provide new and deeper layers of information by telling parallel stories to the written records. This information highlights how the engineers navigated the site and the often-overlooked contributions and struggles of marginalized groups. Women, for example, who were absent from the text, could be seen in the images. This disparity between the textual and visual sources raises important questions: What can we learn about the roles and tasks assigned to workers, the racial inequalities embedded in the system, and the dynamics of gender relations? What can be learned from this technical gaze and different photograph perspectives – simultaneously “colonial” and “negotiated” – about the engineers’ interactions within the construction site, as well as those of the workers being photographed? The article explores the differences between the words and photographs in the reports from different perspectives and on different topics. This challenges the nature of colonial narratives and offers fresh insights into spatial production, labor interactions and how power and landscapes were constructed, documented and remembered.

    Read the full article here.

  • Conhecer os trabalhadores e os processos de construção através de registos fotográficos de obras em Macau (1938-1973)

    Conhecer os trabalhadores e os processos de construção através de registos fotográficos de obras em Macau (1938-1973)

    Proceedings

    Conhecer os trabalhadores e os processos de construção através de registos fotográficos de obras em Macau (1938-1973)

    Publication: Arquipélagos em Diálogo, VI Seminário Internacional AEAULP
    Authors: Ana Vaz Milheiro
    Editors: Pedro Rodrigues, Ljijana Čavić and Hugo L. Farias

    Date: 2026

    Construção de infra-estruturas na Rua Conselheiro Horta e Costa (Gastão Borges, Repartição Técnica de Obras Publicas de Macau, Relatório do ano de 1940, p. 138, AHU: OP01964/Photo)
    Hangar em construção com trabalhadores chineses em primeiro plano e ao fundo o tecnico com chapeu colonial(José Rodrigues Moutinho, Repartição Técnica de Obras Publicas de Macau, Relatório do ano de 1939, AHU: OP01963/Photo)

    Summary

    How did the workers who built Macau’s major infrastructure and public buildings under Portuguese rule influence the design and construction processes? What was the relationship between central institutions based in Portugal and the Macanese Public Works Office, which was also heavily influenced by technicians from China and Hong Kong?
    This presentation attempts to answer these questions by analysing two sets of photographs contained in two administrative reports separated by about four decades. While one of them anticipated the Second World War, corresponding to the full implementation of the Colonial Act (1930); the other was contemporary with the end of Portuguese colonialism in Africa, coinciding with a sequence of public works that would ultimately Portuguese governance until the 1999 handover, such as the Macau-Taipa Bridge.
    The first report was written in 1938 by engineer José Rodrigues Moutinho, who headed the Technical Department of Public Works in Macau. The second report reproduces the architect Pedro Quirino da Fonseca’s fieldtrip to Macau around 1973. This report serves this research by demonstrating how the architect’s gaze was often “sidetracked” to surveying the buildings rather than the construction process.
    Research on colonial public works in Macau, especially in the 20th century, is still scarce, and little is known about their management and labour. In response, this paper will assess the impact of the work reproduced in these images to investigate the role of these (still) invisible workers.


    [Eixo temático: 5. Património, lugar e memória.]

    Read the article here.

  • [CALL FOR ABSTRACTS] Displacing the Drafting Board: Women, Labor, and the Construction Site

    [CALL FOR ABSTRACTS] Displacing the Drafting Board: Women, Labor, and the Construction Site

    Panel

    Displacing the Drafting Board: Women, Labor, and the Construction Site

    Event: Society of Architectural Historians 2027 Annual International Conference
    Chairs: Ana Vaz Milheiro, Francesca Vita
    Date: 14 – 18 April 2026

    Location: Chicago, Illinois

    Summary

    Architectural historiography has addressed women’s agency in architecture through two predominant, yet often isolated, approaches. On the one hand, it has relied on biographical methodologies that highlight leading figures as designers and decision-makers who stood out in the conception of buildings and infrastructure, following the pioneering work of Susana Torre (1977). On the other hand, scholars have sought to recognize the collective role of women as part of the labor force, often categorized as unskilled workers within contexts of precarity (Jha, 2020; Melsens, 2024 Milheiro, 2025). Based on this dual approach, this session focuses on the construction site as the central stage for expanding women’s role in architecture, metaphorically shifting the drafting board to the place where the project is actual built. The aim of this session is to interrogate the physical and social dimension of architectural construction not merely as a site for project execution, but as an ecosystem where diverse forms of female agency also existed. We are looking for papers that intersect biographical histories of women – ranging from designers, work yard supervisor, craftswoman, and others who possessed technical or vocational training and earned wages (Kleinöder, 2022) – with construction sites. By investigating these professional and labor trajectories within the construction site, this session seeks to question: In what ways did the physical presence of women on-site alter construction dynamics and the material culture of architecture? How did gender shape technical authority across different geographical and chronological contexts, with particular emphasis on the 18th, 19th, 20th century?

    By combining archival material and oral history, this session seeks to expand the historiographical canon by recognizing the construction site as a space of social negotiation where intellectual and manual labor meet, thereby revealing the complexity of women’s participation in the materialization of the built environment.

    Click here to submit your proposal

  • Construction and labour in motion. A methodological approach to film images of colonial infrastructures

    Construction and labour in motion. A methodological approach to film images of colonial infrastructures

    Communication

    Construction and labour in motion. A methodological approach to film images of colonial infrastructures

    Event: Construction History and Films International Symposium
    Authors: Francesca Vita, Beatriz Serrazina, Ana Vaz Milheiro
    Date: 19 – 20 February 2026

    Location: CIUL, Lisbon, Portugal

    “Construction and Labour in motion” presentation, 2026
    Database structure

    Summary

    This paper focuses on the cataloguing, data processing and visualisation of film images for studying construction and labour history during Portuguese colonial rule in Africa. As part of the European-funded project Architecture, Colonialism and Labour (ArchLabour), which examines the impact of labour on colonial architecture, this paper explores how the ArchLabour team has shaped a methodology of visual information management through the creation of a digital database that places film images at the centre of queries on the construction and labour of major colonial infrastructures, including dams, railways, settlements, ports and airports. What methods can be used to trace the multiple dimensions of construction and labour represented in colonial film images? How do tools of data management can assist research on construction history, establishing new relationships between categories and revealing unnoticed aspects of construction? How can data from the visualisation of films help research on construction history and labour?

    The paper discusses the design of a digital database, built from scratch by the ArchLabour team together with a group of visual programming experts, and explores how visual data management can be applied for studying colonial construction and labour. In this light, it contributes with a practical example of film images analysis and proposes operational ways to unveil invisibilities of construction history, subaltern labour, non-human actors and material agency.