“For me, the fight against fascism was in the past. My disappointment is knowing that my daughters will be faced with this struggle.”

Born in 1976, he grew up and lived in Estoril. Her father was a graphic and plastic artist and designed José Pacheco Pereira’s PPD stickers. As a child he spent afternoons at the PCP congress centers. It was through the party that the parents met, in a residents’ association.

From his childhood, he remembers the long car trips they took “after their father”, in the family’s red mini. That’s how she got to know the country. The trips were long, there were no highways and “maybe that would be a good thing!”, she confesses.

He is the son of communists, but was never pressured to join the party. At the age of 18, in 1994, he followed in his parents’ footsteps and became a member of the PCP – until today.

The arts have always been in the family and his grandfather tried to impose architecture on his father, but without success. It was the grandson’s choice and is closely linked to communist thinking, to the “dream of building an equal society”.

“If I weren’t an architect I would be a mathematician.” Whenever he thinks about the moment he realized he wanted to be an architect, he remembers the sketchbook of “luxury houses” belonging to a school friend of whom he was “a little afraid”.

It’s an uncertain profession. Already at college, my colleagues commented that they only wanted a studio when they were 50 years old. He works a lot for the State and confesses that payments take a long time. “I spend a large part of my life in this pain, it’s difficult to support an office and the people who work with me”, he says.

He was part of the team responsible for rebuilding houses in Pedrógão, after the fires, and remembers the “pressure” he had to “dispatch everything” because “President Marcelo wanted to open it”. “The value of architecture is always very underrated”, he confesses.

He is also a professor at the University of Lisbon and in recent years he has been very critical of the importance that tourism has in Portugal. “There is always a fear of entering into a tourismphobiabut the societies are all made and focused on tourism”, he explains.

He believes that through housing “we can save democracy”. He recognizes that it is a problem that affects many Portuguese people and remembers the times of cavaquismo and PER, where, he believes, “houses were built and are now being repaired”.

“Housing is not just what is from the front door of the house. Living in common is housing and we failed in the design of cities”, he continues.

In the week of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, Bernardo Ferrão welcomes architect Tiago Mota Saraiva to Geração 70, in a conversation about politics, the growth of Chega and hatred. Listen to the podcast here.