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Working Abroad

Carlos Castanheira

Founder of Carlos Castanheira & Bastai Arquitetos

Carlos Castanheira
"... I usually say, as a joke, that Portugal will never be saved until all the Portuguese are obliged by law to do work experience of a few years abroad, but forbidden from meeting up with each other. [...]”, Jorge de Sena, April 1968, O Tempo e o Modo magazine. 
In my case, I emigrated the moment I started helping Álvaro Siza with the Berlin projects. I never looked back. I would only come back here to leave and then return. In 1981, with my degree almost finished, I went to the Netherlands. I’d always been fascinated by blondes and I was fascinated by the architecture, the one in brick. As fate would have it, which is made by us and by us alone, I continued to work with Álvaro Siza. On projects, but I also started to produce and curate exhibitions. I completed my course in the very last moment and, from Oporto, I witnessed the fire in Chiado. Was it fate? No! It was really the fire that changed the centre of Lisbon and that made me return to Portugal, to continue abroad. Sometimes physically, but always in spirit. Blondes still fascinate me, but I share children and much more with a brunette.
When you work with Álvaro Siza, you emigrate, repeatedly, always. You have no choice but to become ambassadors of Portugal for architecture, but also for what we are and what we’ve become. Almost always ignored, we feel like calling the windows fenêtres. Leaving so as not to return. Returning was never the goal, but neither was emigration ever sought. It was a natural act. Necessary. More than a hundred exhibitions around the world - almost all of them featuring the work of architect Álvaro Siza, but also about the man - have taken our architecture to many people. Nine years ago, friendship took us to Korea, South Korea obviously, and, since then, Asia, personally speaking, fascinates me and, gives us work, both to us and others. Nine years ago there was no need to emigrate. I didn’t feel it in 1981 either. Happily unaware. But I didn’t miss the opportunity. Every journey is a case apart and the example of one will not serve for another. But it can help, especially if there is collaboration and, above all, as they say now, partnership. The intervention of any body, more or less official in nature, can improve and give credibility to our internationalisation, but it will have to be the subject of a well-constructed plan and without any friend or party interests. Our history tells us that we are not very good at making plans and that, without a dash of friendship, however small, nothing can be achieved. We are left with what we are good at: resourcefulness. Which has led us to emigrate. Everyone for themselves. Now the young ones, without looking back.
I’m still fascinated by blondes, brunettes and all the others. Opportunities have always been scarce. And today even more so. I’ll remain an émigré and dreaming that I’ll come back. Only to leave. We have to go around the world because there is no going back. It is the history of the world and the destiny that we build.
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