Pedro Araújo Napoleão
Pedro Araújo Napoleão, author of the book “Sensations and Emotions in Architecture”, PhD in Architecture, has published various works and articles in specialized journals among others.
His carreer has included coordinating and directing construction companies in Portugal and abroad. He worked in Paris for four years as a technical director for a construction-related group. He supervises several internships and has been a coordinator for various projects and public tenders by invitation. He frequently participates and lectures in national and international conferences and seminars. He is a member of the Portuguese Architects Association and AIA – The American Institute of Architects. Pedro has practiced his profession at Panatelier since 1997 and has projects throughout the country and abroad.
He frequently travels for research, having visited the main reference works of Architecture all over the world, such as: The Frank Lloyd Wright Tour, Oak Park, River Forest, Robie House (Hyde Park, Chicago), Falingwater (Mil Run, Pennsylvania), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Mies Van der Rohe Tour (Chicago), The Farnsworth House (Plano, Illinois), Le Corbusier Tour, Le Corbusier Foundation, Villa Savoye, Maison La Roche-Jeanneret, painter Ozenfant’s Maison-atelier, Armée du Salut, Cité de Refuge, Molitor Building, Maison du Brésil and Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.
As part of his research work, he collected elements and numerous self-obtained photographic records from his study visits to reference works by Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi, Andrea Palladio, Leon Battista Alberti, Claude Perrault, Charles Garnier, Henri Blondel, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Jacques-Germain Soufflot, Botticher, Gottfried Semper, Hector Guimard, Otto Wagner, Auguste Perret, Daniel Burnham, Adolf Loos, Henry Richardson, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Eero Saarinem, Oscar Niemeyer, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Santiago Calatrava, Siza Vieira, Souto Moura, Richard Meyer, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, among others.
As part of the International Meeting of Arts and Thought – Poetic Borders”, an event held at Casa das Artes in Vila Nova de Famalicão, he joined a panel of speakers on the theme “Architecture and Sensations”, featuring Professor José Antonio Franco Taboada, Distinguished Professor Emeritus from University of Corunna, Professor Ana Godinho, PhD in Ontology and Aesthetics in Gilles Deleuze, invited Professor at the Technical University of Lisbon, and Neuropsychologist Dr. Vasco Catarino Soares.
He also got invited to debate current topics on a weekly radio program from Radio Cidade Hoje, with the Member of Parliament Dr. Jorge Paulo Oliveira, Professor Dr. José Carlos Reis Campos, and Dr. Bruno Pereira da Silva.
His book “Sensations and Emotions in Architecture” is the result of a long journey through the dialectical world of sensations and emotions, traversing the main reaction zones on the planet such as Rome, Florence, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, Chicago, New York, among many others, where Pedro Araújo Napoleão had the opportunity to establish on-site contact with the most relevant works in the world’s architectural panorama and to deepen his knowledge with important researchers.
As Sensações e as Emoções na Arquitetura
The theme “Sensations and Emotions in Architecture” deals with a sensory and emotional journey through the perceptual and cognitive world that Architecture has to offer, revealing itself as essential for understanding the existence of a psychological phenomenon around Architecture that has gone unnoticed by a large number of people.
At a time when the greatest technological transformations of all time are taking place, when we are witnessing the replacement of human knowledge areas by machines, adding to the loss of uniqueness of artwork in service of mass production; even if we think that creativity is only within reach of humans, it becomes urgent to react through differentiation. Adding creative value so that these same machines continue to depend on us, under penalty of becoming commodities.Throughout the history of architectural movements, we can see the existence of a kind of unfolding between the world of sensations and emotions in the entire creative process, as an ideological expression of a certain class, where ethical and aesthetic values were formed and the work built with greater focus on the user and their interaction with the environment.These movements had philosophical foundations that related the problems of human existence to knowledge of the truth of the mind and language, always a vital utility in all other sciences, as was the case with Architecture, where it constituted the basis of many ideologies and architectural movements.
Taking this journey throughout the sensory and emotional world and narowing its gap with the neuropsychophysiological sciences, at a time when the latest advances in human knowledge through Neuroscience are happening, allows us to bring new elements into discourse and, who knows, uncover new paths.As a result of extensive research work, the book was based on the author’s doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Corunna, which was supervised by Professor José António Franco Taboada, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Corunna, and author of the foreword. He was Director of the Higher Technical School of Architecture at the University of Corunna, from its founding year in 1975 until 1986, and Director of the Department of Representation and Architectural Theories, also since its creation.
In the context of doctoral research work, the author received valuable contributions and decisive guidance for their research from Professor Harry Francis Mallgrave from the School of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The prestigious Professor Harry Francis Mallgrave is an Honorary Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He is the author of more than twenty books.His main reference works include the Costa Rica Building in Corunna, the Galicia Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition of Seville, and the Civic and Cultural Center in Arteixo.The public presentation of the book “Sensations and Emotions in Architecture” was held in May 23, 2018, at Casa das Artes in Vila Nova de Famalicão. It was attended by the President of the Portuguese Architects Association, Dr. José Manuel Pedreirinho, the Mayor of Vila Nova de Famalicão, Dr. Paulo Cunha, Professor Dr. José Antonio Franco Taboada, and Mr. Libório Silva from the Centro Atlântico Publishing House.
«This book is based on an exhaustive and complex work of documentation and research, which resulted in an original and personal work that, thanks to an extraordinary synthesis and a honest and pleasant style, invites us to mentally travel through all the key texts of architecture theory, physically visiting the main buildings that support its argumentation. In this last aspect, the photographs that illustrate the chosen constructions stand out, whose great expressiveness allows us to recreate to some extent the very sensations that the author experienced when contemplating such works.»
José Antonio Franco Taboada, PhD – Distinguished Professor Emeritus from University of Corunna
«The next frontier for architectural design lies not in the further objectification of building and the rationalization of design theory. It resides in understanding better the complex human organism for whom we design. In this regard, the human and biological sciences have made major strides in just the last few decades. Architects and scholars, such as Araujo Pedro, are attempting to interpret these breakthroughs for designers and thereby enrich human dwelling.»
Harry Francis Mallgrave, PhD – Honorary Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the Illinois Institute of Technology