The invention of an atlas of buildings

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003495338-2
1 The invention of an atlas of buildings
Carlos Dias Coelho
The creation of an atlas of buildings of the Portuguese city raises a number of
questions that should be the subject of informed reection. Only in this way will
it be possible to develop a work that is grounded in the cultural tradition that uses
this gure and also in supporting the choices necessary to dene the representation
of the universe to which it refers. In this sense, it was deemed essential to reect on
the usefulness of an atlas of buildings at the present time; also to understand how
it is based in Western culture and architectural culture and, nally, to construct the
premises for an organisation and a work aimed at a specic territory, establishing
the prisms of reading and the categories in which the work should be organised.
The production of atlases responded to one of the greatest ambitions of Western
civilisation after the Renaissance: the ambition for knowledge and its universal
dissemination. It was in this context that the geographical atlas rst appeared at the
end of the 16th century, at a time when the entire Earth was unknown, and which
supported campaigns and expeditions in undiscovered territories until the end of
the 19th century.
In this way, comprehensive knowledge about a subject – the Earth – was
brought together in a document with a descriptive component and a graphic com-
ponent, which could be possessed by anyone, consulted and transported, and seized
without any constraint. In short, an atlas brought together total knowledge of a sub-
ject that anyone could carry in their pocket.
By extension, from the terrestrial atlases to the celestial or maritime atlases, and
also by further extension to others, such as Anatomic atlases.
The appearance of the atlas
The rst work to which the name atlas is attributed was a collection of maps made
by the German- Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator from 1585 onwards, the
1595 publication of which had a frontispiece depicting the giant atlas, with a celes-
tial globe in his hand and a terrestrial globe at his feet.
Although it wasn’t the rst collection of maps published, it was from this edition
that the expression came to identify this type of work. Atlas, which etymologically
means “carrier” in Greek, crosses two mythological legends about Atlante. The

The invention of an atlas of buildings 7
rst refers to one of the titans who fought Zeus who, triumphant, condemned him
to hold the heavens on his shoulders. The other refers to the king of Mauritania,
who is credited with making the rst terrestrial globe, which Mercator inscribed
on the frontispiece.
Geographical or anatomical; celestial or maritime; synchronic or diachronic;
general or thematic; pedagogical or ofcial; printed or digital, the name atlas came
to be given to any collection of maps, tables or integrated illustrations which,
accompanied by keys to reading or descriptions, sought to address a subject as
a whole.
Atlases in the context of architecture and the city
If the city and its components, particularly buildings, have always required
graphic elements in most disciplinary texts, this does not mean that there was
any objective of representing any universe, but only to better address elds of
knowledge, art and technique, which have a physical and formal expression that
constitutes the essence of the object and, as such, is better dened from its drawn
representation.
While the articulation between written and graphic explanations takes place in
the rst texts on architecture, the desire to represent a universe as an objective is
much later and the naming of these works atlas is only episodic. This is due to
the impossibility, and also the pointlessness, of representing the entire universe
addressed, but only to present it from cases that reect a wide range of objects and,
consequently, from those that reect the whole.
It is in this procedure that the question of “type” comes into play, not so much
in its meaning as “a scheme for the production and creation of new objects”, a
much- debated issue in the last quarter of the 20th century, but as “deduction of the
compositional structural characteristics of a set of objects”, which in the case of an
atlas can be illustrated by a concrete example, selected and representative of a set.
In addition to this issue of representing the whole by the part, which clearly
distinguishes architectural atlases, there is also another aspect that characterises
them and differentiates them from geographical or anatomical atlases. If the latter
graphically illustrate an entire universe, selecting only the reductive process of
what is represented, their ultimate goal is knowledge of that universe, be it the
Earth or the Human Body. However, the objective of architectural atlases has
never conveniently resolved the ambiguity between establishing knowledge of the
chosen universe, always based on cases considered representative, and using this
tool for creation and design.
Treatises. Universe and graphic representation
The whole experience of setting down written and graphic knowledge about archi-
tecture dealt in one way or another with all the themes that came to be considered
in the realisation of the atlas of this discipline and which still have to be taken into
account today.

8 More Than Buildings
The oldest known treatise in the West is the work of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio,
a Roman architect who lived during the time of Emperor Augustus, to whom he
dedicated his work. As the only treatise on classical architecture to survive the
Middle Ages, it had an enormous inuence on the Renaissance and the production
of modern treatises, which as a whole guided the production of erudite architecture
until the mid- 20th century.
However, De Architectura reached the Modern Age copied and recopied and
without the drawings that were an integral part of the work. The treatise deals
with design and construction, methods and techniques, and is organised into ten
thematic books (Maciel, 2009). Buildings as the main architectural element are
discussed in Books III and IV, which are dedicated to temples; in Book V, dedicated
to public buildings, and also in Book VI, dedicated to private buildings.
Book VI deals with private buildings and their components through archetypes,
such as the “Greek House” or the “Tricliniums, Pinacotheques and Rooms”,
organising some elements such as atriums by type. Book V, which deals with public
buildings such as Forums, Basilicas or Theatres, also approaches them through
archetypes, sometimes referring to existing examples.
The biggest exception is the way the temples are approached. Unlike the pre-
vious cases, they are organised by type, based on the arrangement of the outer
columns on the one hand and the intercolumnium on the other. Sometimes the
types are exemplied and referred to specic, well- known cases.
Modern treaties took on very different characteristics. O Leon Battista Alberti’s
De Re Aedicatoria Libri Decem, nalised in 1452 and published in 1485, had an
inaugural character and is still today one of the most developed reections on the
discipline of architecture (Biermann, 2016). It did not, however, include any graphic
elements, thus moving away from the purpose of this reection (Alberti, 2011).
Similarly, the Regola delli Cinque Ordini d’Architettura (The Five Orders of
Architecture) by Iacomo Barozzi da Vignola, published in 1562, is far from our
purpose. This treatise, one of the most disseminated in architectural academies
and schools, did not deal with the building, but rather with the canon given by the
orders as a fundamental element in the organisation and composition of the art of
building.
As an example of a modern treatise that poses the most questions for the con-
struction of an atlas, we have selected the treatise by Sebastiano Serlio, entitled I
Sette libri dell’Architettura (The Seven Books of Architecture). These books were
published separately between 1537 and 1575, after the author’s death, with the
exception of Book VI, which remained in manuscript. Book IV stands out at
the time, since for the rst time it presented the ve orders of architecture with
the organisation and sequence taken up by all the later treatises. It was notable
for its remarkable dissemination and already had four translations in 1550. The
exploratory nature of each book meant that the collection was characterised by little
uniformity, despite its great experimental richness, which is why the author also
added an Extraordinario Libro (Extraordinary Book) to the set (Biermann, 2016).

The invention of an atlas of buildings 9
The work presents a signicant innovation in the way it represents buildings,
in many cases articulating a horizontal projection, a oor plan, with a vertical
projection, section or elevation, and also with some details, a system that Andrea
Palladio (2022) would later use systematically in all the buildings and projects
whose drawings he included in his treatise I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The
Four Books of Architecture), published in 1570.
Based on the main organisational themes of an atlas, we can analyse the
different books of Serlio’s work. Thus, Book VI, which remained in manuscript
and deals with dwellings, as well as Book VII, the latter published, combines
the reading of existing cases with projects proposed by the author and also with
archetypes of each building chosen (Theatre, Thermal Baths, etc.). It includes, in
a non- methodical way, the collection of a universe of examples with the aim of
Figure 1.1 Temples table, Quinto Libro d’Architettura di: livre des temples, Sebastiano
Serlio.

10 More Than Buildings
serving as a basis for design, although this is restricted to the architect’s experi-
ence. Book III – Antiquities of Rome – deals with a series of buildings that Serlio
considers to be exemplary, organised by categories such as Obelisks; Bridges;
Arches; Basilicas; etc., but where he also included, very curiously, works by
Bramante and Raphael such as the Tempietto of St Peter in Montorio (Rome) and
the designs for St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Despite the freedom and uidity
of his criteria, he organised a universe which, like most treatises, was represented
graphically.
However, it is Book V – Various Forms of Sacred Temples – that presents the
most innovative and methodologically successful character, when it is organised
from the establishment of twelve types of buildings (circular; oval; square with
circular additives; etc.) and then reverts to real examples. In this book, by starting
from the abstract, Serlio anticipates many of the issues that will inform the formal
categories of the 19th and 20th centuries. He also anticipates, although implicitly,
the question of the usefulness of the type as a deduction and organisation of a
universe of constructed forms, but also as a basic scheme for creation. This latter
understanding of the value of the concept of type, a concept that would only be
stabilised two centuries later by Antoine- Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy
(Quatremère de Quincy, 1825), is what gave rise to the Extraordinario Libro, in
which the author conceived variants for the “Portal” as a prominent architectural
element, proposing twenty different designs for “Delicate Order” portals and thirty
variants for “Rustic Order” portals.
In Serlio’s work we nd the major issues that should be raised in the develop-
ment of an Architectural atlas, although this was not the aim of the treatise, nor do
these issues appear in an explicit and methodical way.
The rst atlas of architecture
It wasn’t until the beginning of the 19th century that the rst work that could
be categorised as an Architectural atlas was published. The publication, entitled
Recueil et Parallèle des édices de tout genre, anciens et modernes. Remarquable
par leur beauté, par leur grandeur ou par leur singularité, et desinés sur une même
échelle, (Collection and Parallel of buildings of all kinds, ancient and modern.
Remarkable for their beauty, grandeur or singularity, and designed on the same
scale) was realised around 1800 by Jean- Nicolas- Louis Durand, architect and pro-
fessor at what later became the École Polytechnique.
Durand published his second work in 1802, and a new version in 1813, entitled
Précis des leçons d’architecture données à l’École royale Polytechnique (Summary
of architectural lessons given at the École royale Polytechnique.) which was a com-
plement to the previous one, with the aim of developing a design method. This
work, with an explicit critical and reective sense, used lessons learnt from the
previous work, using its examples to support and illustrate its principles and the-
ories. Being autonomous works, only the rst one is of interest to us in terms of
reecting on the production of an atlas, although its support for the “lessons” is a

The invention of an atlas of buildings 11
clear reminder of the question of the ultimate usefulness of a work of the nature of
an architectural atlas. J- N- L Durand clearly determines the purpose of each of the
two works, dening the discipline itself in the Précis de Leçon editions when he
writes “...Architecture is the Art of composing and executing all public and private
buildings...” and when he emphasises the principles that govern its production,
highlighting here the issue of composition which, he says, “...amazingly had never
been portrayed in a previous work...”.
As for his initial work, which we previously classied as the rst atlas of archi-
tecture, it was widely publicised and referred to, and was even commonly called
the “Imaginary Museum of Architecture”. Durand himself expressed his great
ambition when he said that the publication “...is of interest to those who have to
construct or represent buildings and monuments, to study all the most interesting
things that have been done in architecture in all countries and all centuries...”. It
is therefore important to understand how the author organised such a gigantic task,
transforming this universe that crosses space and time into a feasible work.
Durand, in the written explanation of the work, mentions the need to select since
“...the buildings of interest would ll 300 volumes...” recognising the usefulness of
a volume that is inexpensive and easy to go through.
In addition to the written text, the work is structured around ninety engraved
tablets with buildings and architectural elements represented on the same scale, to
achieve the goal of allowing a ‘parallel’ comparison. Sixty- three of these boards
correspond to buildings and monuments and another twenty- six to architectural
and constructive details.
The author proposes classifying buildings and monuments by “genres” and
presenting them by degree of analogy. Contrary to many interpretations of Durand’s
concept of “genre”, it does not correspond to the concept of type as it has come to
be stabilised in its different understandings, although it certainly includes it, being
much wider and also imprecise.
Thus, the analogies established by Durand justify the tables organisation,
mainly by programme (Aqueducts, Schools, Palaces, Theatres, etc.) but also
by culture (Spanish Palaces, Indian Tombs, Egyptian Temples, etc.), by time,
which includes existing temples and reconstructions (Gothic Churches, Modern
Churches, Ancient Basilicas, etc), by materials (Wooden Bridges, Iron Bridges)
and even by what comes closest to the concept of type, i.e. their formal structure
(Round Temples, etc).
After Durand’s publication, which was widely disseminated and always much
referred to, considering both its inaugural character and the usefulness of the sys-
tematic collection made, the construction of atlases became recurrent, given the
qualities that were attributed to them as tools of knowledge, both pedagogical and
professional, and the possibilities of diversied and open critical readings that they
make possible.
To illustrate the diversity of publications that can be considered as atlases, and
with a view to understanding this wide spectrum, we can divide them into two large
groups.

12 More Than Buildings
In the rst, we can include works that deal with urban elements in which
buildings are always a component part of the urban fabric. This group includes the
Encyclopédie de l’Urbanisme, coordinated by Robert Auzelle and Ivan Jankovic,
published in fascicles in the 1950s. Never published in its entirety, this unique atlas,
made up of loose sheets, was organised into ve parts that would come to constitute
what the authors dened as a “universal encyclopaedia of the built fabric”, aiming
to represent “achievements in all elds, all eras and all civilisations”, including the
examples considered “greatest” of the different components of the urban fabric,
such as the “square” or the “housing ensemble”.
As a publication that focuses more on a single urban element and where the
building, although present, clearly plays a secondary and fragmented role, we
can mention Great Streets by Allans B. Jacobs, published in 1993. The author,
in his selection of fteen main cases and thirty complementary ones, tries to jus-
tify the representation of types, although he assumes that the selection is largely
personal, even including categories such as “the great street we once lived on”
(Jacobs, 1993).
In 2005, the Atlas of the Dutch Urban Block was published by Suzanne Komossa
(2005), Han Mayer and others, who selected nineteen projects of Blocks in the
cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. They used what they called “Typological and
Figure 1.2 Parallèle: Eglises | Domes.
Source: Jean- Nicolas- Louis Durand, 1801.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 13
Morphological Research”, dening the concept of type that justied the choice
of each of the chosen cases. In the work, the building is an essential component
in dening the block and its presentation is valued in the context of the repetition
of the built units in the composition of the urban element to which the work was
dedicated.
In the second group, we can include works that deal with buildings as an autono-
mous element. Even so, there is an initial split between the atlases that deal with
individual buildings, often called public buildings, and the atlases that try to deal
with common buildings, individual housing but above all collective housing. It
should be noted that since the second half of the 20th century a huge number
of works have been published on the subject of the building with the essential
characteristics of an atlas, varying enormously in terms of the spatial or temporal
universe selected, but with many of them having pedagogical objectives and dis-
seminating experiences carried out in specic contexts.
As an example of an atlas of housing buildings, which focuses on the banal and
repetitive building, representative of a category, we can refer to Typology (Christ,
Gantenbein, 2012, 2015) published in three volumes, the rst exploratory on Hong
Figure 1.3 Comparative Table: Places.
Source: Robert Auzelle, 1947.

14 More Than Buildings
Kong, and the other two on cities such as: Rome, Buenos Aires, New York (vol.
II); and Paris, Delhi, São Paulo and Athens (vol. III). The edition, coordinated by
Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, provides a variety of representative
cases of the main types of each city, organised systematically to facilitate com-
parison and transversal reading.
At the same time, an example of an atlas of singular buildings is the recent
publication by Andreas Lechner, Thinking Design Blueprint for an Architecture
of Typology, from 2021, which presents 144 buildings, which the author calls
‘projects’, taking into account that the universe includes existing buildings,
demolished buildings and buildings that have never been built, all represented
at the most perfect moment of their existence or idealisation. The projects are
divided into twelve categories (Theatre, Museum, Library, etc.), which the author
calls building types and which in practice are functional or programme cat-
egories. In the book, although the author classies the buildings by the perspective
mentioned, he organises a set of essays into three main themes: Tectonics; Type
and Topos, aware that any story about any collection can be told from different
points of view.
Finally, we can also mention the particularity of Atlas Public Sydney: Drawing
the City (Thalis, Cantrill, 2013), which brings together the spaces and buildings of
high value in that Australian city. In this work, a process of selecting cases is less
evident, given the restricted universe to which the book refers, but rather a dia-
chronic view of everything that is presented, not only when each case is dealt with
individually, but above all by including them in evolutionary tables that stretch
from 1790 to 2010, where all the examples are recorded in their most relevant
moments of construction or evolution.
In the Portuguese context, it is worth highlighting a work that had an extra-
ordinary impact because of its inuence on the production of modern architec-
ture and teaching the subject since its publication. The work, published for the
rst time in 1961 under the name ‘Arquitectura Popular em Portugal’ (Popular
Architecture in Portugal), was the result of a public commission and involved
carrying out an extensive survey of vernacular architecture throughout the
country. Carried out by different teams working in six previously demarcated
regions, the survey materialised in an atlas of buildings, focusing mainly on
housing and detailing, through drawings, photographs and diagrams, represen-
tative cases of types, always approached from the perspective of their geograph-
ical context, building organisation and construction characteristics (Ordem dos
Arquitectos, 2004).
Thus, by focusing more on urban elements or buildings approached indi-
vidually, more broadly or thematically and reporting on limited universes, the
questions of ambition, objectives and articulation between written reection
and representation soon stabilised. The always open question of selecting a
restricted and paradigmatic universe from the total universe selected remained
unresolved.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 15
Organising representative categories
To address these questions, we will analyse the work by Nikolaus Pevsner (1976)
entitled A History of Buildings Types, in which the author evaluates and discusses
the subject, selecting a set of categories and expressly ignoring others. Due to the
author’s recognition and dissemination, the work ended up inuencing mainly his-
torical approaches to the production of architecture.
Although Pevsner’s work cannot be considered an atlas, since it only deals
with the classication of objects that represent the selected universe, without the
essential component of a systematic graphic representation, he emphasises J- N- L
Durand’s Recueil et Parallèle des édices de tout genre, anciens et modernes as a
pioneering work.
Pevsner denes a universe that he restricts, on the one hand, and in an unspoken
way, to Western architecture, and on the other to a period of around two cen-
turies, justifying it as corresponding to the period of proliferation of new building
programmes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Paradoxically, it includes a category of
government buildings from the 16th to the 18th century. In addition to the above,
he also excludes collective and individual housing, arguing that this would require
another volume, as well as categories such as churches, which according to the
author have already been dealt with extensively, and more surprisingly, Schools,
Universities and Barracks, which would have “increased the workload to unman-
ageable dimensions”. Faced with these cut- outs, Pevsner can only assume that the
selection is somewhat arbitrary and even personal.
He organises the universe into sixteen classes, which he calls “types”, but
which correspond to functional categories, considering that he does not bring
into the discussion any theme linked to the structure and form of the compos-
ition of the buildings that would justify any arrangement of the objects identied.
These only correspond to the major functions of urban buildings such as national
monuments; government buildings, subdivided into four distinct sets: Theatres,
Libraries, Museums, Hospitals, etc. Almost all of the cases are examples designed
from scratch for the function to which the category corresponds, disregarding cases
where other factors such as the evolution of the building over time, or site- specic
circumstances that congure different results from an archetypal building are
equations of this problem.
The awkwardness of the effect of time on the metamorphosis of buildings is evi-
dent in the way Pevsner refers to the Westminster Parliament in the “Government
Buildings: Parliament” category. Although he historises the evolution of the
building, the author focuses on the project by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby
Pugin, developed after the re of 1834, and attributes the irregularity of the whole
to the existence of two elements of the project that unbalance the outline of the
building – the Clock Tower and the Victoria Tower – and not to the much more
structural issue of the fact that the new building incorporated important pre- existing
buildings, particularly Westminister Hall and St Stephen Chapel.

16 More Than Buildings
The author, aware of the insufciency of a single perspective leading to the
choice of categories, states that the history of types effectively interweaves three his-
tories: the history of function, which informed the organisation of work and which
Pevsner refers to as a history of diversication; also a history of material, which he
claims is in practice a history of innovation; and nally a history of styles, which
he considers to be increasingly complex given the simultaneous overlapping of
styles from the 19th century onwards. Pevsner’s choice of this last point of view
is paradoxical, given that the concept of style is largely opposed to the concept of
type itself.
Considering this last issue, we thought it essential that, before constructing the
organisational model for an atlas, the issue of type be addressed, distinguishing
it from the more generic concept of category, with which, as we have seen, it
is often confused. The concept of type is still not very stable when it comes to
organising these works, and there are still obvious inaccuracies, ambiguities and
even contradictions.
The type in architectural atlases
While it is not our purpose to go into the evolution of the concept of ‘type’ in depth,
we believe it is important to understand its range, using some authors, and to con-
clude with a more stabilised understanding of this concept and its applicability in
an atlas of buildings.
Type was dened by Quatremère de Quincy in his Dictionnaire d’Architecture
(Leoni, 2023), which appeared in print in 1832 and later, in the 20th century, gave
rise to the neologism meaning the science of type, i.e. typology.
The concept of Type, widely used outside the strict sphere to which its denition
corresponds, designates “any concrete being, real or imaginary, that represents a
class of beings” and “a general scheme of structure” as proposed by Lalande (2010
[1902– 1923]). The whole range of the concepts in the disciplinary eld of archi-
tecture varied between a more deductive and abstract character, referring to a set
of experienced objects that can be categorised, and a germinal character, the basis
for the creation of new objects. For Quatremère de Quincy, who is credited with
formulating the rst theory of the Type, it has a character of genesis, expressed in
the examples of the primitive hut or Solomon’s temple, dening itself as a “pre-
existing germ” or “original reason”. The 19th- century author, aware of the open
and multiplying nature of the concept of type, went so far as to state that ‘the type
is an object from which realisations can be conceived that do not resemble each
other’.
Although always present when trying to build any sublimated architectural
object, the best- known example of which is Viollet- le- Duc’s ideal cathedral,
the concept of Type, in its double meaning of deduction or starting point, once
again became an important topic of theoretical debate in the second half of the
20th century, recovered as a response to the iconoclastic obsession of the modern
movement.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 17
Re- launched in an article by Giulio Carlo Argan (1963) entitled On the Typology
of Architecture, the idea of type appears there as a structure internal to the object,
underlying and schematic, then shared by Colquhoun (1981) and Raymond (1984).
This concept took on great importance and was the subject of various reections,
particularly in the Italian School of urban morphology, where it held the key to the
relationship between buildings and the urban fabric in Saverio Muratori (1960,
1963), Carlo Aymonino (1970) and even Aldo Rossi (1966). In the latter, the concept
of type was even reduced to the formal invariants of architectural objects, assuming
an essential role as an operative mode in the act of design, an understanding that
took precedence over any other.
As a conclusion to the importance of type and the stabilisation of the denition
itself, we refer to the article On Typology that Rafael Moneo (1978) published in the
journal Oppositions, which clearly outlined the concept of type from Quatremère
de Quincy to its use in the theoretical debates of the 1960s and 1970s. The art-
icle helped to recognise the relevance of the concept as a response to the major
questions of contemporary architecture. Moneo, on the importance of the notion
of type, states that it is “an obligatory step to be able to dene the discipline [of
architecture] and to be able to establish a theory that supports professional prac-
tice”. Expressing the intrinsic nature of architectural work, on the one hand always
unique and unclassiable and, on the other, part of a class of reproducible objects,
Moneo makes evident the dichotomy present in the concept of type as a deductive
reading and as a foundation for the project. The author’s concluding denition
is characterised by its great synthesis, yet it encompasses the breadth that all the
authors have attributed to it.
Thus, it considers that type is “a concept that describes a group of objects
characterised by having the same formal structure”. To this extent, it refers to type
not in generic categories, but in categories that group together objects, existing
or to be created, with common intrinsic organisational and formal characteristics,
removing many of the accessions that were based solely on the programme or
building systems, for example. In line with the theoretical debate initiated by
Argan, this denition of type subjects more generic categories to a ner lter,
corresponding to the formal structure underlying the object.
For the construction of an atlas of buildings, the sense of type as a starting point
for creation is obviously secondary, leaving it up to the reader, but above all it’s
worthwhile as it allows for an operation of classication a posteriori, given the
existence of a set of real, built or designed objects that can be ordered.
Premises to develop an atlas of buildings
Between 2018 and 2022, the formaurbis LAB research group, from the Research
Centre of Architecture, Urbanism and Design, Lisbon School of Architecture,
Universidade de Lisboa, as a result of a public competition, was given the task of
producing an atlas of building typology in Portugal1, which rst involved the con-
struction of a theoretical apparatus that would then support the options for selecting

18 More Than Buildings
a set of representative buildings from a universe, justifying the choices and trans-
lating them graphically. The work also consisted of constructing individual
building registers, comparative tables and theoretical reection essays justifying
the principles used, with innovative interpretations of the universe represented, and
also opening up the potential offered by this atlas.
Thus, seven major questions were established, which became the premises to
develop an atlas and which will be addressed sequentially.
The rst question was to dene the very subject of the atlas: the building. With
the experience of previous encyclopaedic works, particularly A Praça em Portugal.
Inventário de Espaço Público/ Squares in Portugal, a public space inventory (Dias
Coelho, Lamas, 2007, 2005), which had different approaches and universes, we
decided to consider the building as an urban element, that is, as an integral part
of the urban fabric, although understood autonomously. This approach implied
an articulation with other urban elements, such as the street or the plot, but inde-
pendent of aggregations that required understanding the building in the context of
composite units, such as the block. Thus, the theme should include the singular
building (the Theatre, the Cathedral, the Station, etc.), often of a public nature
and usually of an author, but always of obvious importance as a collective value,
in which society has invested and is culturally reected. It should also include
the common building (above all individual and collective housing; the serialised
industrial building; etc.), most often private and not always by designers, but
which makes up most of the buildings in our cities and to a large extent gives them
their character. The theme also included major urban infrastructures (aqueducts,
wharves, walls, etc.), which form part of the built environment, have an autono-
mous nature and indelibly mould the urban fabric.
The second question consisted of dening the real universe of the atlas, made up
of an unquantiable number of buildings that the work aims to represent. From the
outset, we ruled out dening a universe linked to an event or a sub- theme. It didn’t
make sense for us to approach a selection linked to a specic period of building
production, or to an artistic or cultural movement, or even an event that had given
rise to a wide range of productions.
So the question was whether to consider as a universe what we can summarise
as ‘Portuguese Architecture’ or alternatively as ‘Architecture in Portugal’: the rst
cut has a cultural and temporal meaning, i.e. it restricts the universe to a production
after the foundation of nationality, leaving out an important and vast earlier produc-
tion linked to the occupation of the territory by other civilisations and whose built
structures and spaces were incorporated and reinterpreted after the 12th century.
We would exclude, for example, the Roman wall systems, successively used for
centuries and which, even after their disintegration supported the conguration of
buildings until the end of the 19th century. However, we should also consider here
that understanding the cultural universe would imply bringing into its scope all the
architectural production that took place after the 15th century in the area of over-
seas expansion, where cities were produced based on the continental Portuguese
matrix. Many churches built in Brazil or Portuguese India can be typologically
included in the continental series with very few variations.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 19
We, therefore, opted for a territorial cut- off, corresponding to the current bound-
aries of the country, allowing us to consider buildings made by cultures that have
disappeared, such as the Dolmens that are still part of our landscape today or that
are incorporated into religious buildings many years later. This option also allowed
us to include buildings designed and even partially realised outside the country,
particularly some cases of industrial constructions erected in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.
The third question concerned the denition of the representative universe, i.e.
the reection of the real universe that results from the application of a set of selec-
tion criteria and which translates into the set of examples included in the atlas. This
will probably be the primary procedure in the development of the work, given that
it will result in a readable, comprehensible and operationally useful work for the
reader.
In this sense, we decided to select and build two different sets that correspond
to two universes of representation, with graphic restitutions also at two different
levels. The question of the size of the representative universe is often mentioned in
architectural atlases, in order to ensure that it is useful to the reader and that it can
actually be produced. In our work, we believe that the universe represented should
include a set of 120 buildings, restored in detail using the classic projections for
representing architecture, plan, section and elevation, as well as an axonometric
perspective and photographs. The selection of these cases sought to answer not
only the questions already posed about the theme and the real universe, but also
questions that we are yet to address, such as focus perspectives and categories. In
addition, other criteria were also considered, apparently secondary, but of enor-
mous relevance to the selection, such as ensuring a certain representativeness
of the entire geographical territory of the country or avoiding excessive tem-
poral concentrations in certain categories. The rst criterion was important when
choosing, for example, the medieval cathedral to represent, out of the four that
exist, and the second when representing Entertainment Halls, for example, where
cases were deliberately included outside the 19th and early 20th centuries, the
period in which they were mostly built.
From the beginning, we realised the imperfection of representing 120 buildings
in isolation, a number that removes the possibility of a critical reading of that
selection and the very operability of the atlas. A second set of cases was there-
fore created, comprising 782 examples that, from the representation of just one
plan, oor plan or section, could constitute the essence of the comparative tables,
highlighting the perspectives of focus, the categories of buildings and even, in cer-
tain cases, constructing the series and typological variants.
The fourth issue has to do with the moment when the buildings selected for the
atlas are xed and represented, both in the restricted and detailed set and in the
extended set of comparative tables. In most atlases of buildings, the decision was
made to x each building represented at the moment of its architectural maturity,
resulting in a collection of apparently perfect and almost ideal buildings. Some
cases, as we have seen, even took this option to a more extreme level and made
up the universe represented not by the buildings themselves, but by their designs.

20 More Than Buildings
Naturally, while recognising the validity of the parties described, we took
a very different and theoretically opposite option, since we felt it would be
richer, more complex and even more useful for the current disciplinary debate
if the buildings incorporated their own evolution, even if it was considered
‘deforming’. To achieve this, all the examples were represented at the present
time, incorporating the effects of the process of evolution to which the buildings
have been subjected. In this sense, a Roman building that is now in ruins was not
represented by its hypothetical reconstruction, as has become very common, but
by its state of ruin. This criterion ruled out any judgement as to the value of the
transformation that had taken place, but valued the representation of the result of
this evolutionary process.
Figure 1.4 120 Buildings Table.
Source: Drawings from formaurbis LAB, 2022.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 21
The fth question we tried to stabilise was the perspective from which the
buildings should be grouped in the synthesis tables. Most of the aforementioned
works opted to organise the categories by programme, also calling it function, or
in Durand’s case by what he called ‘genre’, a diffuse perspective that made it pos-
sible to design boards based on very different criteria, aggregating examples both
by cultural origins and by time periods, among many others. Despite this, some
authors have relativised the focus perspective that they themselves favoured, even
saying that the story could be told in various ways (Pevsner: function; materials;
and styles, Lechner: type, topos and tectonics).
The fact that only one perspective is favoured allows a large collection of
buildings to be carefully arranged. However, this reduction to a single point of
view limits the possibility of critical cross- referencing on the part of the reader
and leads to the error of, for example, attributing the exclusivity of the building’s
conguration to the programme, ignoring other important perspectives that start
from different circumstances that inform architectural creation, among which we
have selected context and time in this work. A corner collective housing building
incorporates the principles of the type, but is always a formal variant and an
Figure 1.5 120 Buildings Table (continued).
Source: Drawings from formaurbis LAB, 2022.

22 More Than Buildings
exception to the rule. Equally, a building that spans several centuries and is reused
successively will never be able to respond to the characteristics dictated by the
programme, which will be much more characteristic of a building designed from
scratch to respond to a specic function.
Naturally, these three perspectives of focus, among any other possible, are not
mutually exclusive and any case selected for the collection can illustrate one, two
or even all three perspectives of focus from which the work is organised. On the
other hand, a building can be the direct result of a programme, if the circumstances
of the project, site and time of execution allow it, but that same programme can be
the object of very different solutions if they integrate the constraints or potential of
a specic urban or natural context and, equally, if they consist of a successive reuse
of a heritage building that requires an adaptive interpretation. Far from constituting
a confusing picture, the simultaneity of these three approaches better reects the
disciplinary richness of architecture, as well as responding more effectively to two
of the themes of contemporary reection on the discipline, such as the import-
ance of contexts, urban or natural, loaded with pre- existing information and also
the importance of utilising and reinterpreting existing building structures, both of
which enhance the creative process at the heart of the project.
The sixth question that the organisation of an atlas must answer is that of the
series of categories into which the three focus perspectives are subdivided. For
the programme perspective, 40 categories were established, each translated into a
table, which considered the following themes: Aqueduct, Bank, Barrack, Bridge,
Bull Arena, Cathedral, Cemetery, Chapel, Church, City Hall, Convent, Courthouse,
Cultural Centre, Entertainment Hall, Factory, Farm, Fortication, Garage, Granary,
Greenhouse, Housing (individual), Housing (collective), Hospital, Hotel, Library,
Lighthouse, Market Hall, Mill, Museum, Ofce Building, Palace, Pool, Prison,
Retail Building, School, Stadium, Transport Station, Warehouse, Water Tank, Wine
Cellar.
Similarly, tables were set up to include examples of buildings whose compos-
itional structure stems from the very nature of the surrounding context. This per-
spective was divided into two large groups: the urban, with the categories: Square,
Street, Intersection, Passage, Urban Block, Plot and Infrastructure, and the nat-
ural with the following categories: Ridge, Slope, Rock, On Water, Waterfront and
Greenery.
Finally, a third set of tables was built to focus on time, organised along chrono-
logical lines and graphically referencing the buildings at the main moments of
their construction and transformation. From this perspective, four categories
were considered that best characterise the action of time on each building,
namely: Addition, Subtraction, Metamorphosis and Ruin.
The non- exclusive nature of the categories would allow for duplicate
representations of the same building on different tables, but we chose to represent
each case only once, leaving the reader free to make these theoretical simultaneities.
The seventh and nal question that the atlas should answer is the controversial
issue of type, naturally taken here in the strict context of the denition transcribed
above. The arrangement by type was only carried out when the number of cases

The invention of an atlas of buildings 23
was sufcient for the organisation of boards structured in typological variants, such
as the category of individual and collective dwellings, organised by active fronts
and location on the plot, or the board of the chapels category, arranged by genera-
tive forms. The fact that some boards are not organised by type is due to the fact
that it is not possible to nd an internal structure common to the various examples,
or simply due to their lack of numbers. For example, the fact that there is only one
parliamentary building with hemicycle rooms in the universe represented – the
Assembly of the Republic – does not allow for the creation of a typological series
in the atlas universe, but it does exist if we consider similar buildings with the same
characteristics, such as the Palais Bourbon, seat of the French national assembly, or
the Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
An open reading
This Buildings Atlas is part of a larger atlas project, both as a whole and in each
of its constituent parts, aims to satisfy three main objectives. The rst is to provide
a didactic and pedagogical tool for the study and teaching of architecture and
Figure 1.6 Comparative Table: Convents.
Source: Drawings from formaurbis LAB, 2022.

24 More Than Buildings
urbanism that will prove as fundamental as cartography itself. The second is to pro-
vide a tool that can be used for reection and practicing architecture and urbanism.
This avoids proffering models that are immediately operational, and instead,
provides types that consist of tangible, well- known examples that are dealt with in
such a way that they can be taken as reference points for the conceptual stage itself.
The third and most ambitious objective is to set up a thorough database of readily
available, high- quality information, which will enable, to all specialists in this sub-
ject area, and to a generic public, to have access to a unique source of material for
the understanding and conducting research on urban morphology topics, standing
as a resource bank of material on Portuguese cities.
Figure 1.7 Comparative Table: Plots.
Source: Drawings from formaurbis LAB, 2022.

The invention of an atlas of buildings 25
Figure 1.8 Comparative Table: Addition.
Source: Drawings from formaUrbis LAB, 2022.
newgenrtpdf

26 More Than Buildings
An Architectural Atlas is a collection of objects, and every collection tells a
story, and this morphological atlas intends to explain the city shape in Portugal and
the territory construction itself through the buildings point of view, in a reading that
is not necessarily sequential.
The importance of an atlas today is to tackle the great themes of architecture
with the weapons that knowledge of the entire production of our civilisation, the
basis of our built heritage that we experience daily, gives us.
Since there are no perfect histories, nor perfect collections, an atlas of buildings
is intended to be subject to innite critical readings, not only of what is inscribed in
it, but also of the tools it provides us with for the creative process and the ongoing
production of the built city.
Note
1 “Building Typology - Morphological Inventory of Portuguese City”, ref. PTDC/ ART-
DAQ/ 30110/ 2017 funding by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, IP.
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