The architect José Maria Segurado (1923-2011) died on 4 February 2011. He was the son of Jorge de Almeida Segurado (1898-90) and nephew of José de Almeida Segurado (1913-88), all of them prominent architects in the Portuguese cultural and building world.
     This brief look at their lives and work provides an opportunity to place a spotlight on what was an authentic “dynasty of architects” from the Segurado family, whether one speaks in terms of the most prominent works of the three architects or the times in which they lived and their place in the architectural culture of those times.
     Jorge de Almeida Segurado, born on 15 October 1898, was one of the great creators of modernist architecture in Portugal, with a particularly important body of work produced in the 1920s-1930s. Portugal’s leading architects of this period were frequently referred to as the “group of five” – Cristino da Silva, Pardal Monteiro, Cassiano Branco, Carlos Ramos and Jorge Segurado. But of the group, Segurado is perhaps the one whose work has been less publicised to this day. Beyond the pioneering work by Andreia Galvão, A caminho da modernidade, a doctoral thesis that unfortunately is still to be published¹, there has been no major exhibition on his work and no catalogue or monography published.
     Born the son of the engineer João Emílio Segurado, the author of a series of valuable technical books on construction, which was part of the famous Biblioteca de instrução profissional in the 1910-1920s, Jorge Segurado also devoted himself to investigation and the theory and history of Portuguese architecture – and, in these fields as well as in others, he is the one of the group of five who has had the most work published.
     More conservative in approach, and a confessed disciple of Raul Lino (together with others of the time – Cristino and Benavente), Jorge Segurado very early became involved in the more innovative and avant-garde cultural activity of his generation (Salon of the Independents, 1930) before gravitating in the 1930s towards what was accepted as the “official” or neo-traditional taste.
     Having graduated in 1924, he trained with Tertuliano de Lacerda Marques and worked with Pardal Monteiro on the Caixa Geral de Depósitos building. His first own built work was the modernist-style Moura Market building (1926-31) and he was also co-designer of Coimbra grammar school for boys (together with Carlos Ramos and Adelino Nunes, 1929-31).
     His series of modernist shops in Lisbon (and in Ponta Delgada with the Café Central and the A. Frazão jeweller’s) left their mark on the centre of the city: façades were clad in smooth, polished aluminium, with art déco lettering on top and with profuse neon interior lighting, introducing to the Chiado and Rossio districts the “new image” of 20th century shopping. Many such projects foll-owed: from the Marques & Ca tailor shop (1930) at Rua Garrett, 66-68 (later Sabóia), to the Carrasco shop (1931) at Rua Nova do Almada 83 and the O século newspaper’s shop (1932) on Praça D. Pedro IV, 23, UP Gallery (1933, with António Pedro) at Rua Serpa Pinto, 28-30, and to the Azevedo & Filhos Pharmacy at Praça D. Pedro IV, 31-33 (1933-37), with its curved glass façade, an element that also highlighted the collaboration of António Varela (1902-1963), as in so many other pivotal works of Portuguese modernism (Casa da Moeda, 1933-41; Filipa de Lencastre grammar school, 1932-40).
     As an intellectually inquisitive man, an investigator and a builder all in one, Jorge Segurado took an interest in temporary, exhibitional architecture, which was much fostered by the Estado Novo regime: he took part in the Portuguese Industrial Exhibition (at the top of Parque Eduardo VII in 1932), the Great Model Hotel Exhibition, a travelling exhibition on a train in 1933, and officially led the work on the Portuguese Pavilion at the World’s Fair in 1937, the pavilion being designed by Keil do Amaral. But his most prominent work in this field was for the Portuguese pavilions at the New York and San Francisco exhibitions in 1939, when he travelled to the United States as part of the “team of artists” put together by António Ferro, an experience that resulted in his Sinfonia do degrau [Step Symphony] of 1940. He also designed the pavilions for the Ministry of Public Works exhibition at the IST in 1948 (15 Years of Public Works).
     He also had “failed works”, such as those associated with sports: his study for the university campus sports complex at Campo Grande in Lisbon in 1934 and, above all, the grandiose Lisbon Stadium, the winning design in a competition for the Jamor valley outside Lisbon in 1936-38, which was abandoned after the interference of “that troublemaker Caldeira Cabral” (as his friend Keil do Amaral referred to him in a letter), who persuaded Salazar (and through him [the Public Works minister] Duarte Pacheco) to build what is now the National Stadium on the slope and not in the valley.
     His impressive body of work from this period, with the collaboration of the aforementioned António Varela, also includes the healthcare field. Between 1935 and 1941 he produced designs for the Misericórdia hospitals in Povoação and Velas in the Azores and in Caldas da Rainha (where it was known as the Poorhouse), in addition to the clinic-cum-house for the naturalist Dr. Indiveri Collucci (1936-37) in Paço d’Arcos (Rua Lino d’Assunção). The latter design features a “naval” inspired gallery.
     His works from the 1940s clearly reflect a marked change in his aesthetic orientation towards a neo-traditional and regional-historicist design approach (a trend that was indeed followed by most of his colleagues at the time): the nucleus of “Portuguese villages” from the Exhibition of the Portuguese World in 1940; the Baroque-inspired St. Dorothy’s Private School in Quinta das Calvanas in Alameda das Linhas de Torres, 1935-37; the refined “Portuguese houses” for Reynaldo dos Santos at Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar 142 (1941); and for Terra Viana (Rêgo Botelho) in Avenida António José de Almeida (1943-44); the impressive building in the centre of Covilhã (Rua Visconde Coriscada), from 1943, with its elaborate neo-Baroque design (for António Roque da Costa Cabral); the Fronteira do Caia station (1943); the interior atrium of the Solar do Vinho do Porto, in Rua de São Pedro de Alcântara 45 in Lisbon (1944); the Casa da Suíça (1945) at Avenida da Liberdade 158-158a (together with the architects Max Kopp and Hunaiger); the conversion of the Folk Art Museum (from the Ethnographic pavilion by Veloso Reis Camelo from the 1940 exhibition; 1944-47); the Estalagem de Viriato hotel (1946-58) in Quinta de Vila Meã in Viseu; and his own home in Ajuda, Lisbon, which won the Valmor Prize in 1947 (Rua de São Francisco Xavier, 8).
     He designed some fifty SACOR petrol stations around the country in the 1940s and 50s, such as that in Caia in 1949 (an attempt at a fusion of the modern and the traditional). The other stations range from a “super traditional” style (Aljubarrota) to a “hyper-modern” approach in Vilar Formoso (both from 1951). 
     From the beginning of the 1950s one can also highlight the elegant modernist design for the extension to the Faculty of Sciences building in Rua da Escola Politécnica (with António Varela, if our information is correct; 1950); the conception (very personal, according to a witness account to me) of St. Gabriel’s Chapel in Vendas Novas (1951, with a stained window by Almada Negreiros); and the CGD branch in Caldas da Rainha with its discreet neo-traditional features (1952).
     From this phase on, Jorge Segurado was able to rely on close collaboration from his sons, particularly José Maria Segurado. Please see further below for specific references to their collaborations.
     José de Almeida Segurado (1913-1988; Fine Arts School of Porto – EBAP, 1943) was the younger brother of Jorge. According to António Valdemar, he did part of his degree course in Porto because of his disagreement with the Brute Cunha (a nickname given to the architect Paulo Cunha, an authoritarian and repressive professor at EBAL) – something that he shared with other colleagues of his day – which is indicative of attitude and character. He later worked with his brother Jorge at the beginning of his professional career and also worked for the Ministry of Public Works.
     A strong personality with political (left-leaning) interests, he had connections to the Portuguese Communists and the Socialist Party (with Mário Soares and Salgado Zenha). He married Elza Swart Bivar and, in a second marriage, Clara de Ovar, herself a strong-willed figure.
     José de Almeida Segurado is representative of the architect with not much publicised work, almost all of it in collaboration with others, but with one or two works of major importance in the context of the Portuguese archi-tecture that, so to speak, heralded in the Modern Movement in the country after the Second World War.
     After his project for the O século bathing colony on the Estrada Marginal in São Pedro do Estoril in 1945 (with Inácio Peres Fernandes, 1911-1989), a complex that merely subscribed to neo-traditional design, it was with the urban complex of housing blocks on Avenida João XXI from 1946-50 (with Guilherme Gomes, b. 1917, graduated from EBAP in 1949, Joaquim Ferreira, 1911-66, and Filipe Nobre de Figueiredo, 1913-89, EBAP, 1937-39-43), that he achieved a noteworthy intervention of clearly modern design, well “tempered” by sobriety of forms and volumes that helped to create a whole serene and rhythmic urban ambience along this new artery that expanded the city and connected with the new Alvalade neighbourhood. It remains as one of the best, if not the best, designed new urban arteries of the period.
     Another such work was the more well-known and celebrated complex on the intersection of the Avenida dos Estados Unidos and Avenida de Roma in Lisbon (1952-55), designed and built together with Filipe Nobre de Figueiredo and Sérgio Gomes. This intervention stands out for its great volumetric expressivity and grandiose urban scale, which introduced in a dominant way modern dynamic design that contrasted and created “tensioned balance” with the notions of the traditional composition of a square.
     And finally, in the project for the remodelling, extension and reconstruction of the Casino Estoril (1965), again working with Filipe Nobre de Figueiredo, he succeed in giving the facility a new, modern image on an impressive scale that was well articulated with the expansive gardened avenue in front of the sea. The new casino took on an image marked by luxury in the design, furnishing and lighting in the interior spaces that was balanced and strengthened by monumental restraint of the exteriors.
     The work of José Maria Segurado (9 July 1923 - 4 February 2011) is to a large extent tied to that of his father Jorge. Indeed he worked with his father since his graduation as an architect from EBAL, around 1950, until the latter’s retirement. He continued to design after that in the same firm, while at the same time working as a freelance architect in his own right².
     One must therefore distinguish between three groups of works resulting from his professional activity: firstly, those attributable to his lasting collaboration at the Jorge Segurado firm – from the 1950s until around 1985, when his father retired; secondly, the works he designed himself but for the Segurado firm after his father’s retirement, i.e. roughly in the 1985-2005 period; and thirdly, the works he produced independently.
     Of the works of collaboration at his father’s firm, for which we have knowledge of ample or greater involvement of José Maria, one must mention the Oeiras Foundry buildings and the National Agronomy Station at Quinta do Marquês de Pombal in Oeiras, 1953-67 (particularly in the phase in 1961), which together reflect a modernising, somewhat moderate, expression. Other prominent works by the firm in this phase mostly likely had active input from José Maria, such as the SACOR neighbourhood in Olivais (ca. 1950 to 1965, also known as the Oliveira Salazar neighbourhood), and the Pousada do Infante Dom Henrique (1960), a hotel in Sagres opened in 1961³.
     Of the works produced by José Maria Segurado himself one can highlight a number of projects for the Segurado firm, post 1985, to which he made the dominant contribution, such as: the Soponata building in Lisbon in 1985; a large number of projects for branch offices and headquarters of the A Social insurance company around the country between 1987 and 1995; and the work for the Quatro Águas/Jorge Segurado Auditorium for Tavira Town Council in 1998.
     In terms of works produced by José Maria Segurado outside the family firm, but in collaboration with other architects, one should highlight his involvement in the project for the Portuguese Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1957-58, on which he worked with Pedro Cid (1925-1983; ESBAL, 1952), who won 1st prize in the architecture competition. In order to provide support to the construction work, José Maria lived in Brussels for two years.
     Of the many works for which José Maria Segurado was solely responsible the following are particularly noteworthy: the Nuclear Energy Board building in Fonte de Cobalto, 1966, as well as other buildings for the Board in Sacavém between 1966 and 1978; the Vila Real Polytechnic, 1975; more branch offices for A Social, such as those in Castelo Branco, Miranda do Corvo, Famalicão, Viana do Castelo and Porto from 1986 to 1989; and the extension of the Pousada do Infante hotel in Sagres, 1990-92.
     But the high point of his design achievements is perhaps the Calouste Gulbenkian Mass Spectrometry Laboratory building (designed around 1960, opened in 1964), which was built on the IST campus. It was later extended to become the IST Interdisciplinary Complex in 1967-69 (opened in 1973). The building features façades with that are of neutral, discreet, almost banal expression, but has very elaborate interiors in line with an organic, almost intimate dimension that gives it unique specificity and originality in the context of the overall IST complex (as if it were a “contained luxury”). Accordingly, one can highlight the use of “hot” materials such as natural-coloured wood on the walls and ceilings, in the main foyer, the canteen, auditorium and library (spaces that are linked together by the foyer’s fluidity), as well as the collaboration of fine artists in creating the overall image of the spaces, such as Lagoa Henriques (the wall sculpture in the entrance) and Jorge Vieira (a screen panel in the foyer). As far as the endeavours to model the exterior light for certain spaces (the canteen and library, for example), the very “Corbusian” use of vertical brise-soleils, of variable geometry and mechanically operated, on the west façade, is particularly noteworthy.

José Maria Segurado also designed a large number of private dwellings in the Algarve, such as those for the engineer  Rui Ferreira in Tavira (1963-64), for Joaquim Tojal in Cabanas de Tavira (1965), for José Herculano Brito de Carvalho, also in Tavira (1981),  and his own house in Quinta da Pegada, likewise in the vicinity of Tavira. |

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¹ Andreia Galvão. A caminho da modernidade: a travessia portuguesa, ou o caso da obra de Jorge Segurado como um exemplo de complexidade e contradição na arquitectura (1920-1940). Lisbon : Lusíada University, 2003. 3 vols. Multicopied text. Doctoral thesis.

2 In referencing the work of José Maria Segurado for Jorge Segurado’s firm, one should also mention the other family members who also worked over extensive periods of time for the firm: João Carlos Segurado, José Maria’s brother; José Maria’s son, António Segurado; and also Francisco Segurado Tojal. Other members of the family are also architects, though they did not work for the firm. These are: Sofia Segurado, José Almeida Segurado’s granddaughter; and Pedro Segurado Quintino Rogado, Jorge Segurado’s great grandson. João Alberto Segurado, son of José Almeida Segurado, became a graphic designer. The wife of José Maria, Demitília Segurado, was the daughter of the chemistry professor António Herculano Guimarães Chaves de Carvalho, who was chancellor of the Lisbon Technical University from 1966 to 1969.

³ One should also reference, in terms of the projects José Maria was involved in, the so-called “yellows blocks” project by Jorge Segurado in Avenida do Brasil, 112-132 – a low-cost housing project for Montepio from 1954-59, which was completed in 1963. Also involved in this project was Jorge Segurado’s other son, João Carlos Segurado. The blocks are one of the most interesting urban complexes in the Alvalade neighbourhood, for their siting radically based on the Athens Charter (free-standing, parallel, east and west exposure), for their very humanised scale and also for the uncommon use (and somewhat irreverent colour) of the tile as the complete covering for the exterior surfaces.