Pancho Guedes

Who is Pancho Guedes?

Pancho Guedes, often referred to as Amancio Guedes and born Amâncio d'Alpoim Miranda Guedes in 1925, is a Portuguese architect, sculptor, and painter. An archetype Eclectic Modernist born in Lisbon, Portugal, he spent much of his life in Portuguese Mozambique from when he was 7 years old. In East Africa he produced the designs for hundreds of buildings, many of them in the city of Lourenço Marques.

Guedes was part of “Team 10”, a group of architects who assembled in July 1953 at the 9th Congress of CIAM and adopted a new approach to urbanism. Aside from his large-scale architectural projects, he is also a sculptor and painter who has exhibitions include at the Berardo Collection Museum in Lisbon. After the events of the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, he left newly independent Mozambique in 1974. Mozambique was officially established in 1975 as the People's Republic of Mozambique. His rapid departure from Mozambique in 1974 along with other Portuguese subject to the 24/20 declaration left his family almost penniless. Due to his reputation, he received an invitation to take the vacant chair of Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.