Jorge Ferreira Chaves

From 1978 to 1981, he designed interventions in public buildings, as an Architect of the Ministry of Public Works (Portuguese: Direcção-Geral dos Edifícios e Monumentos Nacionais - DGEMN do Ministério das Obras Públicas).

In his diploma application exam (Portuguese: Concurso para a Obtenção do Diploma de Arquitecto - CODA), in 1953, Jorge Chaves obtained a significant passing grade: 19 out of 20.

In 1952 he was invited to the office of the architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro, with whom he worked in designing the Palácio da Rotunda and Sorel buildings, but especially the Hotel Ritz in Lisbon, "a remarkable work, for its aesthetic wisdom and excellence of material execution ". During architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro illness and after his death in 1957, he ensured the continuity of the project of the hotel, by giving assistance to the construction and by heading the phase of execution in a special office built in the site, until its inauguration in 1959.

Although the design of Hotel Ritz was his core activity from 1952 to 1959, he kept his own office to which he was exclusively dedicated after 1959.

He was a member of ICAT - Iniciativas Culturais Arte e Técnica (English: Culture, Arts and Techniques Initiatives) and also of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes (English: National Society of Fine Arts). He participated in four sessions of the EGAP Exposições Gerais de Artes Plásticas (English: General Exhibitions of Visual Arts) by presenting architectural projects. In 1948, he participated in the 1º Congresso Nacional de Arquitectura (English: 1st National Congress of Architecture).

In parallel with project activity in his own office, he collaborated with the office of architect Miguel Jacobetty Rosa, between 1948 and 1952, and did an internship under the direction of architect Hernâni Gandra during 1951.

In 1946 he set up his first office together with his graduation classmate Luís Coelho Borges.

He rejoined the School of Fine Arts in 1944 to finish the architecture degree and was awarded the 1946 José Luis Monteiro Prize, which included a monetary stipend for students achieving academic excellence. The prize was significant, since it had not been awarded the previous years, and had accumulated. Simultaneously, in 1946-1947, he attended the Sculpture degree. In 1948, he graduated in architecture.

His professional career started during the period of 1943-1956; a period which Nuno Portas has designated as the stage of "resistance" in Portuguese architecture and art. From 1944 to 1946, in the final years at university, he collaborated with architect Joaquim Ferreira. During this period, he also collaborated, occasionally, with architects Filipe Nobre de Figueiredo and Alberto Soeiro.

Professionally active between 1941 and 1981, he is considered one of the most perfectionist Portuguese architects. From 1946, in his office, he developed several dozens of projects for continental Portugal, the island of Madeira, Portuguese Guinea and Angola.

In 1941, his degree program was interrupted because of military service during World War II, and he was stationed with the Portuguese expeditionary forces on the island of São Miguel in the Azores. He remained on the island until 1944.

He was one of the architects responsible, in the latter part of the 1940s, for the establishment of the Modern Movement in Portugal.

He studied architecture at the Escola de Belas Artes de Lisboa (English: Lisbon School of Fine Arts), having entered in 1935.

Jorge Ferreira Chaves (22 February 1920 – 22 August 1981) was a Portuguese architect.

Jorge Ribeiro Ferreira Chaves was born on 22 February 1920, in Ponta do Sol, municipal seat of Ribeira Grande, on the island of Santo Antão in Portuguese Cape Verde.