Betar

What are your main memories of António Rocha Cabral?

Eng. Rocha Cabral left us on January 16th, exactly six years after the death of his great friend and partner, José Mendonça. I started working at BETAR in December 1992, when I was 24 years old. My earliest memories go back to the beginning of 1993, to the three or four months during which we did our first two projects together, the New Facilities at the Mitra Campus and, soon afterwards, ESAD. We spent long hours sitting side by side, poring over several layers of drawings, with Eng. Cabral imparting to me his extensive knowledge of engineering, acquired over more than 30 years of professional experience. It was the start of a strong friendship that lasted eight years until his retirement in 2001. I remember Eng. Cabral as an extremely thorough engineer, of noble character, very intelligent, quick-witted and never intimidated by new challenges. When deadlines prevented us from completing the details of a project, he would always say: “Daughter, whatever can’t be drawn, we’ll solve on site!”. And that was always the case: any question raised by the contractor, he would grab his rollerball pen, and a sketch would appear with the solution, between the strains of some operatic aria or other melody that inspired him, at the moment. He charmed anyone he came across, whether they were architects, designers, or fellow engineers, who admired him for his knowledge, curiosity, calm demeanor, charm, friendliness, good mood and fantastic sense of humor. His culture was vast in many areas such as cinema, literature, poetry, painting and politics. He was also a melomaniac with a passion for opera and classical music, and a profound connoisseur of the history of classical music. Eng. Cabral was a generous person who enjoyed passing on to new generations not only all the knowledge he had accumulated over the years in his profession, but also the knowledge he had gained from books, films and music; from the countless works of art and architecture he admired in the museums and cities he visited… He was a very organized person with a prodigious memory. He recorded his experiences in diaries which, after his retirement, he shared with his friends via e-mail. I was one of the lucky people who received a poem and a song almost every week.

What legacy does he leave the company, engineering, and the following generations?

Eng. Cabral was an example to follow as an engineer and as a coordinator of multidisciplinary teams, managing to convey to new generations the respect that an engineer must have for the various professionals who interact with him, from the execution of the project to the completion of the work. He was a good listener, made himself respected and was respected, without ever raising his voice. He left the company a vast body of work that fills us with pride. He worked with several architects from different generations, establishing strong bonds of friendship with some of them. He passed on to us his passion for culture and art, as an integral part of the formation of the individual and the professional. Those who lived with him learned that to be an engineer is to be in a constant process of professional and personal development. Personally, he was my mentor and a devoted friend. Well done, Eng. Rocha Cabral.

Can you think of a story that best demonstrates his approach to life or his profession?

I remember the thousands of kilometers we traveled around the country, visiting construction sites, which in addition to good conversations, usually included a stop at a restaurant to get to know the local cuisine, a monument worth visiting, or even an exhibition. As a professional, I remember one time when a building owner asked us to come and look at a project he had designed, with my collaboration, and which had a cracked slab. Eng. Cabral didn’t rest until we understood what had caused the cracking and came up with a reinforcement solution that would prevent it from progressing. With this experience, he showed me that, in our profession, we must always face the consequences of our mistakes with humility and a sense of responsibility, accepting the error but working hard to resolve it, so as not to let our name or the name of the company we represent down. I leave you with his words, always wise, in a mixture of irony and hope, written in his Christmas message in 2011, when we were going through a serious financial crisis: “Another Christmas. This in a time of crisis. As I was born and have spent Christmases in times of war, I don’t think it will be the End of the World. My whole life has been after that time. The lives of today’s young people will certainly have the same “future” as mine did. Down with the crisis! Long live the future! (as the optimist José Gomes Ferreira would say)”.

This interview is part of Artes & Letras Magazine #149, February 2023
Partially automatic translation from portuguese: some expressions may differ from their actual meaning.