The work carried out so far in the curricular units linked to the teaching of photography at FAUP has aimed to bring the world of teaching closer to that of research. Moreover, it is pertinent to highlight that the pedagogical meth- odology employed aspires to cultivate in students a comprehensive capac- ity for informed and independent thought, enabling them to articulate this thought through a compendium of photographic visual narratives. This ped- agogy necessitates, among other components, an openness to critique—both commendatory and detrimental—concerning the political, economic, social, and artistic contexts of urban space and its architecture. Consequently, the resultant works exhibit diverse realism and abstraction, varying in their inter- pretative approaches to reality and the issues they elect to convey.
Notably, the students’ projects exhibit significant con- ceptual and technical influences from various authors. For instance, the Parque Residencial da Boavista project, executed by Ana Amélia Ferreira, Ana Carolina Varejão, João Diogo Afonso, and Maria Inês Silva, invokes Italo Calvino, imaginatively and critically linking the author’s narrative regarding the fantastical city of Valdrada with a paradigmatic residential district from the 1970s in Porto. Through the fictional framework of Valdrada, the photographic series investigates the concepts of symmetry, transformation, and identity of the Boavista Residential Park, thus (re)discovering the atmospheric qualities of its architecture and public space. The influ- ence of authors such as Jitka Hanzlová is also evident in the series’ direct engagement with the neighbour- hood’s nature and architecture, underscoring their rela- tional and often latent tensions with the greenery and urban environment. Additionally, elements inspired by Andreas Gursky are manifest in certain images, particu- larly those of larger scale, characterized by meticulous attention to detail, patterns, and the intricate landscapes of the neighbourhood’s architecture.
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Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto