Architecture and the Gesamtkunstwerk: Alberto Pessoa’s Furniture Design

Abstract

In the post-war disciplinary discourse, the theme of architecture as a synthesis emerges evoking the idea of gesamtkunstwerk, this time associated with society’s collective spaces. This debate sought the integration of functionalism with a more humanist approach as an attempt to bring together architecture and society. Using as support two projects designed by Portuguese architect Alberto Pessoa (1919-1985), this text will explore the architect’s design of furniture as a fundamental token in the search for a Modern global design, to discuss one instance of how the idea of modern architecture as a synthesis of several disciplines was pursued.