Grants #ResearchForChange

Lia Antunes (she/her)

Women of the SAAL Process (1974-1976) in Portugal: Women architects and residents for the right to housing

Hypothesis: The influence and impacts between Portuguese women, technicians and residents, and the SAAL process were mutual. On the one hand, the important housing program gained a lot of relevance, nationally and internationally, due to the work and political and professional involvement of women based on everyday needs; on the other hand, SAAL allowed residents to emancipate themselves with literacy classes in the neighbourhoods, and gain a public voice by participating, for the first time, in meetings, assemblies, and demonstrations, and to techniques by working with a new methodology, with a collective client and for a public cause. Undoubtedly, alongside the representation of women, access to housing – dignified, adequate and a place of individuality and rest – is a fundamental pillar in realizing women’s full citizenship. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese Revolution this year, it’s crucial to acknowledge that women were not just present, but actively shaping their future through their involvement in the SAAL process.

Abstract: All over the world, the demand for the right to housing was and is a women’s struggle. In Portugal, the April 25, 1974 Revolution, known as the “Carnation Revolution”, stopped the longest dictatorship in modern Europe. The country had, however, inherited a heavy legacy: on the one hand, Portuguese women were considered second-class citizens, and on the other hand, the housing shortage was enormous, and slums proliferated in the country’s largest cities. The Revolution brought forth a groundbreaking state housing program: SAAL, Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local [Local Ambulatory Support Service], a unique initiative in Portuguese architectural culture. Its originality and importance made it an international focus of the architectural debate of the 1970s and 1980s. Multidisciplinary technical teams worked in those poor urban settlements, actively involving residents in discussing the neighbourhoods’ urban projects and the houses’ architectural projects. More than 90 neighbourhoods were built, a testament to the program’s impact. Women, despite being overshadowed by male architects and their works, were the true protagonists in the SAAL process. The doctoral thesis Women in the SAAL Process (1974-76) in Portugal – developed at the Department of Architecture at the University of Coimbra (Darq-UC) and the Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies at the University of Lisbon (CIEG/ISCSP-UL), which will be completed in 2024 – main objective is to shed light on women’s experiences and achievements. I delve into the motivations and contributions of both women residents and women technicians (architects, sociologists, cultural animators, psychologists, students), in local support teams and regional and national coordination, and also at all stages – beginning, development, implementation, national dissemination and international – of the SAAL Process. Methodologically, the bibliographical review of an extensive body of literature, written from different domains of knowledge (architecture, urbanism, sociology, anthropology, history, political science, visual arts), was interspersed with intense fieldwork: interviews with stakeholders, conversations with researchers, consultation of general and specific archives, viewing of films, congresses and exhibitions. All the data is being analyzed using MAXQDA.

How did MAXQDA help you? In the Portuguese version, MAXQDA is being used to qualitatively organize, process, and analyze diverse data and to structure the thesis by themes. The SAAL process is present in numerous general archives and specific archives in Portugal and abroad and is very well documented. The general archives were: Torre do Tombo, Ephemera, Fundação Serralves, Fundação Mário Soares, Cinemateca Portuguesa, among others. The specific archives were: 25 de Abril Documentation Center (University of Coimbra), the archive of the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), the District Archive of Porto, the Municipal Archive of Setúbal and Lisbon, archive of the Union of Women Alternative and Response (UMAR), or Matriarchiva (personal archive of Mexican architect Josefina Mena). In terms of audiovisuals, I could list some: television videos of the time on RTP Arquivos, films such as Habitat (directed by Fernando Lopes, 1976), Os Índios da Meia Praia (directed by António da Cunha Telles, 1976), As Operações SAAL (directed by João Dias, in 2007) or Paredes Meias (directed by Pedro Mesquita, 2009). inally, the 5 dozen interviews made, plus 20 interviews carried out and published by other people as part of other investigations on SAAL, were transcribed and analyzed by themes in MAXQDA. In the end, between 2021 and 2023, I aggregated more than 8 thousand documents – including texts, interview transcripts, photographs, videos, posters, pamphlets, and letters – and it would be impossible to deal with so much information without the help of a qualitative data analysis program. The organization of the results of the fieldwork at MAXQDA forced me, fortunately, to structure the thesis in advance at an early stage – a very important step! Today, I am using the Excel file reports generated by the program to write the thesis and relate the text with the many images and a few attachments.

About the Author: Lia is an architect, a PhD candidate and a early career researcher (Darq-University of Coimbra & CIEG/ISCSP-Univeristy of Lisbon, Portugal). She graduated from the Univ. of Coimbra in 2012 with the master dissertation about Architecture: Feminine noun. Contribution to a history of women in architecture. Between 2018-2020, she was a research fellow in the research project W@ARCH.PT – Women Architects in Portugal. Since 2021, She is developing the PhD thesis on Women of the SAAL Process (1974-1976) in Portugal: Women architects and residents for the right to housing (FCT funding). She has written several articles, book chapters and books, and participated in many conferences, around the history of women in architecture in Portugal. Her main interests are: the role of women, architects and non-architects, in the design and negotiation of the built environment, designing strategies that implement the right to housing and the city for women and girls, and the climate crisis with a gender perspective.