Alvaro Siza: Boa Nova Tea House, Leça de Palmeira 1958-63

This early work by Siza has survived a half-century without officious preservation. Its subtle relationship to its craggy site is matched by the delicacy of its organization and the robustness of its construction. The journey through the landscape continues in the inflection of the plan and nestling section. The influence of Japanese and Scandinavian architecture is manifested in the most Portuguese ways, but particularly in the relationship to that alluring horizon glimpsed in a clerestory window as one pauses before descending to the principal rooms.