José Manuel Fernandes

Join us for The Living Memory of Cities, a seminar series convened in collaboration with Eric Parry Architects and the Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE), London Metropolitan University.

Nova Oeiras Neighbourhood Unit, a modern urban settlement of 1950-60s Portugal

The Bairro Residencial de Nova Oeiras (Nova Oeiras Neighbourhood Unit / BRNO) stands in the surroundings of Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, as one of the most qualified and active built communities in the country. Given the confirmed quality and heritage dimension of the neighbourhood unit, the Oeiras Municipality initiated a restoration program for its buildings and public spaces (since 2002 to 2017-18); matured, approved and published an official regulation plan (2012, reviewed in 2017); and organised a proposal for the application of BRNO for UNESCO Word Heritage List (since 2014), to be analysed by the Portuguese UNESCO commission group. The edition of the bilingual The Nova Oeiras Book / O Livro de Nova Oeiras (2015, CMO ed, 203pp), organising all available data, synthesised this project and process.

José Manuel Fernandes was born in 1953. He graduated in architecture from the Escola de Belas Artes de Lisboa, where he has lectured since 1978, and has been a lecturer, PhD graduate (1993) and professor (2010) in the history of architecture and urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon. He has also been a member of the Editorial Council of the magazine Monumentos since 1994. He has been an invited lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, since 2003 and was department director from 1998 to 2000.

José was director of the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea at the Portuguese Ministry of Culture in 2001–2003 and he researches, writes and publishes frequently on the history of architecture and urbanism (scientific articles since 1978 and research and general readership books since 1989). He coordinated the field of Subsaharan Africa for the study Património de Origem Portuguesa no Mundo – Arquitetura e Urbanismo, directed by José Mattoso, for the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (2007–2010), published in book form in 2010–2012 (in Portuguese and English), and available online at HPIP (2012). From 1993 to 1997, he was the first chairman of DOCOMOMO Ibérico, as representative of the Associação dos Arquitetos Portugueses, a speaker and bidder at the DOCOMOMO Ibérico Conferences in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2013 and 2016. His latest book is Carlos Ramos, Arquiteturas do Século XX em Portugal (with Ana Janeiro, ed. Imprensa Nacional / Casa da Moeda and Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, Lisbon, 2014 – Prémio Joaquim de Carvalho da Universidade de Coimbra in 2015) and he has coauthored/ coordinated Macau, Cidade, Território e Arquitecturas (with M L Janeiro, ed. I I Macau, Lisbon, 2015); O Livro de Nova Oeiras / The Nova Oeiras Book. Bases para uma Candidatura a Património da Humanidade UNESCO. Documentation for the application for UNESCO World Heritage (with M L Janeiro, ed. Câmara Municipal de Oeiras, Lisbon, 2015).