Porto’s Serralves Foundation inaugurates new wing dedicated to the renowned Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira
Photo: ©Juan Rodriguez
Recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects and a Pritzker laureate, Siza Vieira is a truly remarkable figure in Portugal
It is possible to find a building by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira in Venice or Berlin, Hangzhou or New York. In London, Siza has ‘only’ designed a Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, but this did not discourage the Royal Institute of British Architects from awarding him the coveted Royal Gold Medal for architecture.
This followed on a 1992 Pritzker, sometimes referred to as the Nobel for architecture, for plans to rebuild the Chiado district of Lisbon after a terrible fire.
Despite these extensive achievements, an elegant humility threads through the seven decades of Siza’s architectural practice, even embracing a number of projects realised in collaboration with other architects, most notably Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Installation Views, ‘Improbable Anagrams. Works from the Serralves Collection’, Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Álvaro Siza Wing, Porto, Portugal, from 23 Feb 2024 to Aug 2024 ©Filipe Braga
Rooted in Modernism, very probably influenced by the work of Adolf Loos and Alvar Aalto, Siza’s work has a particularly Portuguese poetic quality that speaks to our emotions.
Rejecting over-egged monumentality and architectural gimmickry, Siza places the individual at the centre of site-sensitive projects.
Humane curves and gentle ramps, light used almost as a material, warm tones, intimate spaces and signature detailing distinguish calm buildings.
Álvaro Siza Wing at Serralves Museum
As a boy, Siza longed to become a fireman, then an opera singer (classical music has remained a life-long source of pleasure), and finally a sculptor. Eventually, paternal pressure determined that he study Architecture, considered a profession more promising than art.
One early commission was the Boa Nova Tea House (1963), built with dramatic lyricism on the rocks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Leça da Palmeira, just north of Matosinhos, the seaside town near Porto where Siza was born.
Located on the opposite side of Matosinhos, Siza’s Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (1999) has several characteristics already expressed in the Tea House, such as the strong relationship between interior spaces and the exterior natural world, or the extensive use of finely crafted materials, including wood, cork and marble – Siza comments that the Salazar dictatorship, although it kept Portugal in a technologically backward condition, did not manage to stamp out high-quality craftsmanship.
In addition to commissions for private houses, in the years following the overthrow of the dictatorship, Siza designed a number of social housing projects throughout Portugal, such as the innovative Bouça neighbourhood in Porto, a community support programme. These projects are considered models of their kind, providing intelligent attention to the needs and comfort of inhabitants.
Porto is Siza’s home city, and sombre granite was for centuries the traditional construction material for important buildings emblems of religious and social oppression. But his public projects, frequently cultural institutions finished in white, endow cities with luminosity. From 1966, Siza taught at the Faculty of Architecture (University of Porto), eventually becoming synonymous with this institution, as well as holding visiting professorships in universities around the world.
Built over an energetic 18 months, the Álvaro Siza Wing extension at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Porto in February 2024, coinciding with the Museum’s 25th anniversary and the architect’s 90th year.
Essential Algarve met Philippe Vergne, the museum’s director, for a tour.
Philippe Vergne, Photo Joaquim Norte de Sousa
Vergne is feeling elated – Portugal’s internationally renowned contemporary art museum has gained 44% more exhibition space and expanded its archive area by 75%.
He arrived at Serralves in 2019 from Los Angeles, where he had been director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, bringing a wealth of international experience, style and wit. Since his arrival, several additional Siza projects have been realised in the Serralves Foundation’s glorious park: the Manoel de Oliveira Cinema House, a Gardeners’ House, and restoration of the Art Déco-inspired Serralves Villa.
A sound piece specifically designed for the new building by Portuguese artist Luisa Cunha, titled It is what it is, provocatively accompanies the visitor’s first steps in the new gallery space which is showing two inaugural exhibitions.
Improbable Anagrams proposes works from the museum’s collections, creating unexpected relationships between works by artists of different generations, from the 1960s onwards, and different countries of origin.
The relatively small-scale, intimate exhibition spaces have a fluidity that invites challenging displays, and this first exhibition offers a feast of stimulating connections. In a room with a powerful series of late Paula Rego paintings of women, this correspondent comments to Vergne: “So many of Rego’s battles have still to be won.” He responds, “Not ‘battles’, ‘conversations’!”; a perspective Siza might appreciate.
Álvaro Siza self-portrait
On the lower level, a second exhibition, curated by António Choupina, C.A.S.A. Collection Alvaro Siza Archive, celebrates the span of Siza’s architecture through dozens of maquettes of buildings designed since the 1950s.
The exhibition is divided into thematic sections with titles such as Family Houses, Houses of the People, Houses of Knowledge, Houses of Idleness, Houses of Culture…
In 2015, Siza donated an important part of his archive to the Serralves Foundation, making the Foundation in a very literal sense his home, or ‘casa’. It is intended to mount regular architectural exhibitions in the Siza Wing.
In addition to architectural plans and photographs, C.A.S.A. shows the essential role of drawing for the architect, with captivating sketch books and a selection of Siza’s personal art work on the walls that surround the maquettes: members of the architect’s family, animals, minotaurs… tender, spirited drawings in ink. There are also videos: Siza speaks slowly, with reflection, crafting each sentence, a pen in hand to illustrate a point, pausing (frequently) to light a cigarette. Behind glasses, his eyes light with finely-tuned humour.
We stop in front of one of Siza’s sculptures, a human form in wood. Vergne indicates the architectural maquette next to it. Seen from above, as if the visitor were a bird, the 1999 museum suggests a human body, with arms and legs, a friendly hand reaching out to connect to a second, smaller body, the new extension, an organic development set in the Serralves gardens.
