Rute Maria de Sousa Martins Bota

BIOGRAPHY

Rute Bota was born in Loulé, in the district of Faro, in 1932. She completed her studies at the Liceu Nacional de Faro (7th year) on 27 September 1950, with a grade of 13. She then enrolled in the Architecture course at the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon, completing the coursework on 18 July 1957. In the 1960s, she started her career as a “temporary secondary school teacher”; by 1964, she was teaching at the Liceu Nacional de Chaves. One year later, on 9 April, she graduated in Architecture, receiving her diploma on 7 September 1965.
For her final project, she submitted a Programme for Obtaining the Architect’s Diploma on 15 May 1964, titled "A shelter for underwater hunters on Pessegueiro Island", in Sines. The proposal included three written pieces and ten drawings. The project was subject to critique for improvements, in order to make it “more illustrative”, with a revised version submitted a month later.
It is likely that she went to Mozambique in 1965, as on 12 May 1971 she signed a report titled "Situation of Primary Schools in Mozambique in the last decade 1949-1959" for the Directorate-General for Public Works and Communications. In this report, which she signed as "the architect", she provided a series of recommendations and suggestions for standard architectural designs for school buildings, which addressed aspects such as "lighting, ventilation, insulation, and solar protection".
Rute Bota worked under the leadership of architect Fernando Mesquita, who held various roles in departments and divisions of studies, as well as in Public Works and Overseas Transport. Bota signed several projects as part of this team, including some of the standard designs she had detailed in 1971. According to Zara Ferreira, she also signed the projects for the Technical School of Lichinga (1964-1973), Gago Coutinho Secondary School (1969-70), Quelimane Secondary School (1969/70), and Matola Preparatory School (1970).

​

(Leonor Matos Silva, 2024)