Portugal dos Pequenitos, Coimbra

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.

New Urbanity: Siza in Evora

Alvaro Siza’s project for housing in Quinta da Malagueira outside the ancient city of Evora.
Begun in 1977, the neighbourhood is an immediate product of the revolution of the carnations in 1974 and the work of SAAL. The morphology of the original Roman settlement is continued through the design of 1200 low-cost, single family units, with arcades to the public areas. Harvard University Graduate School of Design recognised the design with the award in 1988 of the Prince of Wales Prize.

These photographs will feature in the forthcoming exhibition "New Urbanity: The European City of the 21st Century" at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) showing from 5 December 2008 until 22 February 2009 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The project will be supported by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, Germany.
The exhibition focuses on the public space of the modern European city and its architecture.

Casa dos Bicos, Lisbon 1523

Upper two storeys destroyed in the eartquake of 1755, rebuilt in 1983.

Porfirio Pardal Monteiro: Church of Nossa Senhora de Fatima, Lisbon (1938)

This suburban church from the late 1930s presents a curious hybrid of architectural languages and materials. Its interior is formed in a gloomy concrete gothic, lit only by dramatic stained glass. This very atmospheric space sits behind a façade which could only be categorized as art-deco, although a rather austere example of the genre as befits its function. The expressive modernity of the individual forms of façade, campanile and baptistery are anchored by a rusticated base which adds much stability to the asymmetry of the composition.

Coimbra Collegiate Caryatids

Caryatids from the courtyard of the University of Coimbra

Se Velha, Coimbra