Why do you publish this book? What are the difficulties involved?
Andre Lui: I have always felt that there is a lack of architectural guidebooks in Macau. Paris, London, New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities have them, but Macau does not. In recent years, some organisations, such as DOCOMOMO, have tried to publish a guidebook on modern architecture in Macau, and some time ago, the Root Planning also published “The Modern Trace – The Art Map of Modern Architecture in Macau”, which are some kinds of attempts.
The difficulty for Macau to do this in detail lies in the research, which involves the information that cannot be found, because not everything is in the open archives, and many files related to the Public Works Bureau are not open to the public, which makes it difficult to research and publish such a guidebook.
Sometimes there are different statements as to who designed the building, what year it was completed, and so on. There are uncertainties because we do not have access to the records. Even in the case of the Pedro V Theatre, up till now, there are still many different interpretations of who had participated in the design of the building, and this is due to the lack of access to the relevant archives. If we have access to the files, it would be quite different.
For example, when the Post Office published a book for the 135th anniversary a few years ago, they could have access to those archives, so the whole story could be presented in a complete manner, and it could be learnt that there was not just one person who designed the building throughout the years.
After all, these studies involve archives. When I talked to architects in Hong Kong, they were very surprised because if they wanted to find the archives and plan of the building, they could find them directly, and it is not a secret, but it seems to be very secretive here, and it is very difficult to know who designed it.
For the time being, I have tried my best to put in all the information that I can confirm in this book. In the future, perhaps someone will retrieve some more information and say that it is not the same person or the same year.
In the book, it is mentioned that some of the earlier buildings were designed by architects who did not study architecture. What is the development of professionalisation of architects in Macau?
LUI: I have done some research before. In the 19th century, there was a rule in Portugal that one had to study architectural design in a European university before one could qualify as an architect, so there were no formal architects in Macau in the early days. In the 19th century, Macau’s designers were more amateurish, so their designs were more aesthetically unorthodox than the Western-style buildings in Hong Kong that were designed by formally trained British architects in the 19th century.
By the beginning of the 20th century, not that Macau did not have its own architects, but they were few in number as there were only a few Portuguese architects who came to Macau. The reason why there were only Portuguese architects was because the requirement mentioned just now was still in force in the early 20th century in the Portuguese and Portuguese-administered territories, and so there were very few local people with this qualification. How many local Chinese managed to go to Europe for university studies and then came back to work at that era? Even architects from Spain who graduated from universities in Europe were marginalized by the Macau authorities at that time.
Like I wrote in my book, during the period from the early 20th century to the 1960s in Macau, engineers were mainly responsible for architectural design. However, the function of engineers was to calculate the structure and materials, and the aesthetics of architecture was not their speciality. That is why I feel that when you look at those buildings, you will see that they used whatever elements that were popular in the West at that time, and to a large extent, they did whatever the owners asked for. The owners might have asked for whatever they saw in Shanghai and Hong Kong to be done in Macau.
From the 1960s onwards, Macau gradually had professional architects, such as Manuel Vicente and José Maneiras, etc. The design of some buildings was still influenced by the owners, while some architects have a very strong character and the owners could not do anything about the design. In the 1980s, there were also buildings where the architects succeeded in convincing the owners to keep the façade.
How do the buildings mentioned in the book reflect the relationship between Macau and Europe or the world trends? Is there a so-called “Macau character” in local architecture?
LUI: Although Macau was late in its development, it did follow the trends. For example, Art Deco started in Paris in 1925, while in Macau it started in the 1930s, which is only a few years later, and then a little bit more in the 1940s. Then there were the real modernism buildings, such as the Edifício Rainha D. Leonor, the Portuguese School, and so on.
For the time being, the one style who can identify as a group in Macau is Manuel Vicente, because Vicente has been in Macau for quite a long time. He came in the 1960s and then again in the 1980s. He had an architect’s studio in Macau, and some of the current architects here have also worked with him, such as Rui Leão, and Adalberto Tenreiro, who later developed his own set of designs.
Before the April 25th Revolution in 1974, most of the architects in Lisbon were working on projects in line with the Salazar government, whereas Porto tended to be more international because it was not the capital city after all, so it was possible to make designs that did not manifest the dictatorship. After the April 25th Revolution, everyone tended to be more international, and they would look at what was going on internationally, and they wanted to catch up with what had been done before.
I personally think that the architectural character of Macau before the Handover was a diversity of styles, with no dominant style and no dominant figure. To a society, this is a very good thing. It was because of the environment and culture at that time that we were able to create a blossoming of design.
How did this blossoming come about?
Lui: There are no obvious designs of the Lisbon School or the Porto School in Macau, and before the Handover of Macau, it was popular for Portuguese architects to work in the form of ateliers, like artists, that is to say. This is like the European ateliers model, which is why design firms in Macau are very small, unlike large international firms or firms in the Mainland that have hundreds of employees. In this kind of small studio, because the head of each studio is the architect, there is more emphasis on individual artistry, and there is more diversity, for example, some people are doing post-modernism, some are doing this or that style.
Also, at that time, many design projects were conducted through competitions – the competitions were not the same as today’s tender openings. Nowadays, in the bidding process, the design part is not weighted heavily, and it is calculated together with the construction. However, before the Handover, the design and the construction were separated, as in the case of Europe. In Europe, there are now many design competitions where the design is selected and then the works are carried out. After the Handover, Macau has put more emphasis on construction works. Sometimes the design has to accommodate with the construction works.
When I was in France, there were many projects that the design rights had to be obtained through competitions, and only in this way could the design profession flourish. If every project is tendered through a construction project, architects will only be attached to the construction project. In Macau, in recent years, the Public Tender for the Architectural Design Project of the New Port Captaincy Building and Optimisation of the Surrounding Area, as well as the new Central Library, are the two major architectural competitions in Macau in recent years.
What makes a good building?
LUI: In fact, no matter what the style it is, we can apply the words of the architects of the ancient Roman era, that is, there are three major elements in architecture. The first one is practicality, because buildings are designed for use, but not just for use., as it should be strong and safe. I think the security referred to here is not only structural security, but also psychological security. The third is aesthetics. Attention should be paid to the artistic aspect of aesthetics, which is relatively neglected in our society. Our society has attached more importance to the first two points. I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but I just want to say that artistry is also important.
