Between May 27 and June 20, 2024, all who stepped inside FAUP’s library were invited to glimpse Grand Tour # 1 to Milano and Bologna (Cesena) through a virtual exhibition.

FAUP’s library is specialized in Architecture and dedicated to serve not only the scientific community of the Faculty and University but also the general public.
The video presentation of Grand Tour # 1, together with its dedicated graphic material, was presented in the library’s main access, facing the lobby.

Curatorship, organization and installation: UpGranT - Porto Team (Helder Casal Ribeiro and Sílvia Ramos)

During the Soviet period, architects in Latvia had a rather limited access to information on architecture abroad. They could make an official request to the state library through the so-called architectural design institutes where they were employed as architects. Upon such a request, they could take out architecture magazines to which the library was subscribed and bring them to their institutes for studying for a limited period of time. A common practice was copying the most interesting projects or details on a tracing paper in order to keep them as a reference. Considered the most obvious low-tech solution for obtaining a copy, this must have been a productive learning practice as well.

Leading us along the Baltic coast from Riga up until Tallinn, Grand Tour #2 allows us to explore the rich architectural history of this Northern European region. During this trip, there is a particular focus on the socialist modernism – ambiguous architectural heritage from the Soviet occupation period, as well as some remarkable examples of contemporary architecture.

Between June 12 and 14, 2024, taking the opportunity of Grand Tour # 2, the Porto Team reproduced part of the Alvar Aalto Route that Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza took together in 1995 through Finland and Russia.

This itinerary, in Fernando Tavora's handwriting and kept in Álvaro Siza's Archive, is part of the current exhibition "C.A.S.A. Collection, Álvaro Siza Archive" and was celebrated during a guided tour on June 25th, Álvaro Siza's birthday.

From this itinerary, the Porto Team focused on Helsinki and its surroundings, visiting all the Alvar Aalto works studied in loco by Siza and Távora, thinking about possible affinities and contaminations.

Organization: UpGranT - Porto Team (Helder Casal Ribeiro and Sílvia Ramos)

In our selection of Estonian architects-grand tourists we want to give an insight to the four historical periods which have shaped life and culture in the country during the past 120 years: Russian czarist rule, inter-war independence, Soviet power and liberation since 1991.