The three Musketeers of 'Modernist Architecture' in the Algarve

The pioneers of 'Modern' architecture in the Algarve in the 1950s-'60s

At the same time that architecture of the "official taste" prevailed, talented and non-conformist young architects, born in the Algarve and of a new generation, who completed their studies at the end of the 1940s, started their practice in a modernist language and political setting (socializing,internationalist, left).

Manuel Laginha, Manuel Gomes da Costa and António Vicente de Castro are currently the three best-known names, in the Algarve of the '50s -'60s. After their Graduation in Porto, where they completed their studies due to a non-conformity that caused tensions in Lisbon (the school, with a reactionary and classical orientation that they previously attended) these architects started in the respective cities where they settled or went to work the first qualified examples of the so-called "modern architecture of the international movement" a post-war architecture built in the Algarve.

We especially associate Manuel Laginha with Loulé, Manuel Gomes da Costa with Faro and António Vicente de Castro with Portimão. In these cities but also in other cities in the Algarve, they have contributed to the construction of a modern, consistent andeffective urban planning and architectural image. They are the best known modern architects from the Algarve of the 50s -'60s.