Gadamer’s hermeneutics and the practice of design in architectural education

Abstract

This paper attempts to describe the way in which the recognition of the value of the architectural heritage is shaped and stressed in the teaching of architecture developed in the 3rd year of the Integrated Master’s Degree in Architecture at ISCTE, University Institute of Lisbon. With a notion of legacy consisting of the collective heritage that encompasses the concepts of culture and memory, the experience of teaching is the appropriate setting for an informed debate about heritage values that pass down from generation to generation. This article intersects, in the preparation of architectural projects, the recognition of the value of heritage as belonging to the organizational, technical and artistic fields with the conceptions of “historical consciousness” and “tradition” from hermeneutic philosophy in the person of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), so as to provide new results in relation to traditional approaches. In methodological terms, what is intended with these exercises is to enable students to develop a broad concept of heritage, where the idea of the recognition of its value allows a reading that includes the landscape as a whole. The results obtained show us that students deal with heritage through actions that include the restoration and rehabilitation of objects (buildings), but also through proposals where the organization and preparation of programmes articulated with each other, taking into account people, landscape and culture in the present, are concepts that are integrated in the projects.

Keywords: hermeneutics, architecture, urbanism, teaching of design, urban rehabilitation.