Tiago Mota Saraiva was born in 1976, grew up and lived in Estoril. His father was a graphic and plastic artist and designed José Pacheco Pereira’s PPD stickers. But it was at the PCP congress centers that I spent my afternoons as a child. It was through the party that the parents met, in a residents’ association.
From his childhood, he remembers the car trips he took “after his father”, in the family’s red mini. That’s how she got to know the country. The journeys were long, there were no highways and “maybe that’s just as well”, she says.
The son of communists, he guarantees that he was never pressured to join the party, but at the age of 18, in 1994, he followed in his parents’ footsteps and became a member of the PCP – until today.
“The Communist Party is going through a very difficult time, with internal and external causes, but I believe that there is some bourgeoisie voting for the PCP”.
The dream of building an equal society
The arts have always been in the family and his grandfather tried to impose architecture on his father, but without success. It ended up being 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.” Tiago Saraiva confesses that when 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”.
At college, my colleagues commented that they only wanted a studio when they were 50 years old. Today, he admits that architecture is an uncertain profession. 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 is difficult to support an office and the people who work with me”.
The rush in construction in Pedrógão Grande
Tiago was part of the team responsible for rebuilding houses in Pedrógão Grande, 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 unqualified”, he says.
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.
“Before, all of Lisbon knew that you could go to Baixa and find a little bit of everything, now you can’t find anything, it has become ‘touristized’ and it has become very expensive”.
The times of cavaquismo and PER
Tiago Saraiva 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. He believes that “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”.
“Generation 70“ It’s a loose conversation with today’s protagonists who were born in the 70s. The generation that is in charge of the country or on the way. Here we talk about expectations and frustrations. Of dreams come true and those that were lost.
A first-person portrait of the indelible passage of time, a journey from the 70s to the present day led by Bernardo Ferrão.
