70 years of Carvalho, Batista & Cª, Lda - The invitation to Arch. Vitor Mestre and Sofia Aleixo
Continuing the challenge we set ourselves to share our history and evolution, as a company and entity of commercial and historical reference, both for the sector and for the city's own culture and identity, we invited Architects Vitor Mestre and Sofia Aleixo to write about his relationship with Carvalho, Batista & Cª., Lda, following this path of celebrating the company's 70 years
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"A temple to ingenuity and mechanical arts
Hardware is like liturgical implements, which moves and makes the destinies of houses, buildings or a simple piece of furniture move. The fittings are delicate joints made in the continuity of human gestures, they are natural extensions like fully useful limbs. The hardware is precise in its mechanics, direction change, ball joints, precise in their reach, as if they had sensitive terminals. They have secrets to keep other secrets such as houses, museums, complex machinery, or an intimate commemorative medallion. How many houses, from the humblest to the most sophisticated, would be if they did not incorporate these inventions, these mechanical arts, ergonomically sculpted to be functional and beautiful.
Hardware is like liturgical implements, which moves and makes the destinies of houses, buildings or a simple piece of furniture move. The fittings are delicate joints made in the continuity of human gestures, they are natural extensions like fully useful limbs. The hardware is precise in its mechanics, direction change, ball joints, precise in their reach, as if they had sensitive terminals. They have secrets to keep other secrets such as houses, museums, complex machinery, or an intimate commemorative medallion. How many houses, from the humblest to the most sophisticated, would be if they did not incorporate these inventions, these mechanical arts, ergonomically sculpted to be functional and beautiful.
The hardware that inhabits my memory comes from its own place, with an exhibition architecture of rigor and dazzle, to look at us from inside the windows of drawers on high shelves, through the shine of brass, chrome or simply the blackness of their absence. The samples, hanging from wooden boxes held by strings, wires or nails, form ophthalmological measurement charts, a kind of graduation table and alphabet of different sizes, which whenever we consult, we test the range of our vision, the memory and the antiquity of the object compared to the last visit. Sometimes, our memory is startled because something changed, disappeared, perished, like someone we always saw in the same place, whatever the day or month.
Hardware stores have their own smells, which varies from space to space and inevitably end up in the compartments or places where chemicals are stored. They also have the particularity of distinguishing the areas that are exemplary clean and the others, which are always being cleaned in reality never achieve this goal, we refer among other items to metals, arranged in grids for rods, profiles, nets or steel sheets, brass or aluminum. Their origin prevents them from remaining clean, as they are like beings with their own life, permanently releasing their “breath”. However, handling it is always something that compels us to feel its density, resistance, flexibility, among other attributes, and of course, it compels us to perform the ritual of washing hands, in a dim place with rust drippings that reminds us of work workshop behind the hardware.
Entering the Carvalho Batista hardware store on Rua do Almada, in the seventies and early eighties of the last century, was like attending a lesson in materials that we lacked in Lisbon's Fine Arts. A cathedral of ironworks, where the hustle and bustle of the always very helpful employees contrasted with the serenity and contagious humor of Mr. Carvalho, who left no one indifferent. He had a special flair for his customers, who considered him a loyal advisor, and he didn't miss out on any hardware suggestions... The store's exemplary functional organization by sectors, determined the specialization of the employees, duly hierarchized, who over time became members from the same family. We already knew the voices of those we were looking for due to the thematic specificity of what we wanted, such as handles, compasses for designing windows, floor springs or when we had a difficult problem and didn't know what type of hardware was available on the market, the solution could only exist at Carvalho Batista. The most fantastic thing that sometimes happened was when they offered me precious samples of unusual handcrafted hardware. Once at the studio, they were displayed on the drawing board as part of a precious collection, due to their originality, functionality and the beauty of the hardware, their future being guessed in the architectural context as they were part of the drawings of the execution projects.
Between 1995 and 1999, I went to Porto almost every Friday. It was a day that I was looking forward to, because I would be with the architect Fernando Távora, I would spend a few hours working on the Aljube building and, time after time, I would visit the Carvalho Batista store, which produced several pieces of hardware designed specifically for this project. The drawings were then spread out on the counter to be viewed by Mr. Carvalho and Zé Carvalho who, in view of the craftsmen executing them, the respective machine tools they used and of course, due to the enormous knowledge of both, the drawings were improved and continued for execution. Basically, the “hardware” classes continued beyond the course that ended in 1981. At the beginning of the 20th century, I started another “apprenticeship” with the technical support of Zé Carvalho, in line with the carpentry workshops that collaborated with him, that of designing furniture, among others those destined for the University of Coimbra. During this period, the historic hardware store was renovated, without losing its memory, identity, soul, reaching the international level that all of us who appreciate hardware stores are proud of. Carvalho Baptista is a contemporary historical store, in other words, it's a company with a future."
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