“What DARQ?” is an extension to the pedagogical plan of the kaleidoscopic, critical and interdisciplinary approach of the research on Portuguese architecture that (EU)ROPA constituted and of which “What? When? Why? Portuguese Architecture” was a public milestone.
History of Architecture IV students worked on the What? History, Historiography, Fascism, Colonialism, Democracy; Architectural Theory II students developed the What? Social, Women, Education, Research, Pop.
The results are shown as “What DARQ?”, using the name of the Coimbra school of architecture, take the form of “objets trouvés”, “exquisite corpses”, para-architectural models, montages, collages, formal, graphic and bibliographic explorations. They also interpellate the theoretical contents of the courses History of Architecture IV and Theory of Architecture II.
Enthusiastically, committed, and speculatively, the group of students, organized in groups, embarked on the adventure of creating an object that reveals the proposed content or supports it, among many other variations.
They are two collections of fearless objects, a skyline for DARQ, where History (sometimes heavy) and the future (by definition unsettling) play with each other, in a festive way, in any case.
Critical thinking emerges as a link that allows architecture as a discipline –or interdiscipline– to continue to be the space where we find ourselves.

© MARIA BICKER

© Jorge das Neves