Maria Carlota de Carvalho e Quintanilha

BIOGRAPHY

Maria Carlota de Carvalho e Quintanilha was a Portuguese architect who worked in Mozambique under Portuguese Colonial rule. She was born in 1923 and died in Lisbon, 2015. She started her education at the Lisbon Fine Arts School, but got her degree at the Porto School in 1953. Three years later, she was in Lourenço Marques (current Maputo), after a short passage by Angola. In Maputo, Quintanilha took up a teaching position, considered an appropriate role for a woman. The lack of technicians in Mozambique however allowed her to develop a practice in the office of the architect J.J. Tinoco, her husband, mainly working on private commissions. During the 1960s, they worked on commissions for the Colonial Public Works Boards mostly modern buildings in the northern region, such as Government District and Department Headquarters, in towns including Vila Cabral (Lichinga, 1961-1968) and Porto Amélia (Cabo Delgado, 1963-1966). They also designed several aeronautical facilities including Porto Amélia (Pemba airport, 1959-1961) and Vila Cabral aerodromes, the Head Offices of the Maputo Aeronautical Services and the Nampula airport. After the couple’s separation in 1966, Quintanilha continued working both as an architect and as a teacher, until 1972, when she returned to Lisbon.

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(Ana Vaz Milheiro, 2021)