Álvaro Siza Vieira

Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira ( born June 25, 1933, Matosinhos, Portugal), is one of the most important contemporary European architects. In Portugal, Siza is the main representative of modernity.

Life

Álvaro Siza Vieira was born in 1933 in Porto's harbor suburb of Matosinhos. In Porto he lives and works, teaches at the Faculty of Architecture and operates since 1958 his architectural office. From 1949 to 1955 he studied architecture at the Arts Faculty ( Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto ), the University of Porto. Until 1958 he worked at his professor Fernando Távora office. From 1966 to 1969 he was an assistant at the University of Porto, in 1976 a professorship. Along with Eduardo Souto de Moura Távora and he is one of the leading representatives of the School of Porto.

Shortly after the Carnation Revolution of the then 41 - year-old architect was given the opportunity to customize the SAAL social settlement Bouça in Porto a flagship district, spanning the rows of terraced houses, together with the previously set individual buildings intimate streets rooms and so grow to a rural situation.

For the reconstruction of the destroyed by a major fire in 1988 Lisbon's historic Chiado district, he received the 1992 Pritzker Prize.

Siza Vieira was a visiting professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, at the University of Pennsylvania, at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá; he held the " Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor " at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University. It was in 1992 by the University of Valencia and awarded an honorary doctorate in 1993 from the EPFL Lausanne.

General information on architecture Siza Vieira

On Siza Vieira's work, the development of modern architecture read to the 21st century way, the architectural heritage of European avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s is as much alive as the transformations it has undergone since the 1960s. His local issues pledged buildings made ​​him one of the leading exponents of critical regionalism.

In his plans for homes, social housing, housing complexes, public buildings, neighborhoods and redevelopment areas he is sensitive to the conditions of a landscape, city environment and traditional building culture to implement them in a strict, modern design language.

His buildings appear to be classified in a balance of invisible forces that spring from the landscape. In this way he reached towards an attitude of utmost respect nature, and the artificiality of the procedure, the brings any architectural project itself could gain as justification. Noteworthy is the consequence of this integration, which is reflected in all scales and architectural themes.

Siza Vieira is famous for his sketches. In them he maintains complex situations and facilitates their understanding. They establish a dialectic between his creative intuition and the detection of the architectural quality and are the most important creative tool of the architect. Already in the first sketches for his projects can be found again many of the later qualities of the design.

Realized Siza Vieira has his projects, especially in the post-revolutionary Portugal, and later in the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

Biographical Overview

Selected Projects

1961-1966 lido Leca da Palmeira

The designed in a terraced landscape pool Piscinas de marés is located a few hundred meters from the Boa Nova Tea House. The complex has two pools, a café, laundry, toilets and changing rooms and technical equipment for monitoring water quality.

The archaic brutalist concrete structure shaped like a sculpture seamlessly embedded in the rocky landscape, pools, which allow the waters of the Atlantic and still protected to bathe before the typical here pounding surf. It is wonderful to see how repeatedly spill bigger waves in the basin and the otherwise quiet, warmed water to stimulate a little, and so the artificial Bad return a poetic touch of nature.

The unusual homogeneity of building and landscape Siza Vieira emphasized by the materials: exposed concrete consists of a very granular cement, which the crushed rock of the coast is added. This creates an amazing effect of the embedding of the flat building in the jagged rocks.

1958-1963 Casa de Chá da Boa Nova, Leca da Palmeira

The Casa de Chá da Boa Nova ( Teahouse of Boa Nova ) is Siza Vieira's first major and independent work. After Siza Vieira competition even began as an employee Fernando Tavoras to the teahouse, it records already own for the execution of the project.

The pavilion is located on the Atlantic coast north of the Douro estuary near Siza Vierias birthplace Matosinhos. Huge, round washed stones are interspersed with sandy beach. Almost hidden, very white and crouched on a narrow spit of land, is the flat construction between the chunks and retires under his great tiled roof. Of waves and seagulls enclosed on three sides, granted in exceptional Double Glazing on the lake side protection against storms, sea spray and the roar of the ocean. The sea-facing patio is nestled amidst the flora of the rocky coast.

The kitchen and storage rooms are located towards the land side. Inside, the building is divided into a dining room and a lounge-like tea room. For both you have a wonderful view over the Atlantic - the wide band of windows can be lowered, then the space into a balcony, a large outdoor stage transformed with dark stained wood and brown leather chairs.

1980-1984 House Avelino Duarte

On the basis of the design for the house Avelino Duarte Ovar Siza Vieira is often associated with Adolf Loos, who is considered a pioneer of modernism in architecture. The externally very plain plastered building creates inside by the skillful use of wood and natural stone atmospheric spaces.

The Siza Vieira Loos studied is beyond question, but goes Siza Vieira about the theories Loos ' addition. Was Loos still surface oriented strictly in the handling of materials and dealt with their stratification, which is certainly not least came through the influences of art nouveau in Austria and southern Germany concluded, against whom he turned, so Siza Vieira apparently leads the tradition, but in a much more spatial thinking.

1980-1984 dwelling house Silesian Gate - "Bonjour Tristesse "

The house stands at the Silesian Silesian Gate Road No. 7 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. It was built in 1982 /83 and includes a war gap in existing buildings of the street. The draft Siza Vieira saw an equipment with four large apartments per floor in front, which should be accessible by four staircases, also various social institutions should be integrated into the ground floor. For cost reasons, the plan was modified. Today there are two staircases, over the 46 apartments are accessible.

The name " Bonjour Tristesse " did not get the house by the architect but by an unknown sprayer who sprayed these words on the prominent gable of the corner house. This should be understood as a critique of the gray facade and the monotonous window designs with ever equal intervals within the varied streetscape. A recognizable remote base zone or a roof edge, as it was common in the 90 years older, surrounding architecture, there is not. The only variation is achieved with a curved design and a high attic.

1988 Aveiro University Library

The University of Aveiro was founded immediately after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 and is an expression of reforms in society and education system one in transition Portugal. This is reflected in urban planning and architectural point of view expressed. The campus consists of strictly ordered equal row houses, which are arranged around a central square, without a hierarchy so. A spatial concept, which is in stark contrast to the traditional grown over the centuries universities in Portugal. Few buildings break out of this order, including the library. My volume seems to resemble those of the other body, but it is rotated 90 degrees and is oriented by the sprawling Ria landscape. Her appearance is determined by the contrast of red brick surfaces to bright natural stone, a common material issue on campus.

2003 Urban Design Alcântara, Lisbon

Siza Vieira suggested as part of a custom built by him urban design to build three high-rise buildings in the district of Alcântara Lisbon. Near the historic Ponte 25 de Abril, the towers would flank the entrance to the city on the Tejobrücke. The most controversial proposal was rejected. Some sources imputed Siza Vieira controversy and claimed that the proposal would never have been meant seriously, but intended as launching a discussion of the high-rise theme in the historical urban fabric.

2005 Museo d' Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina

In June 2005, planned by Siza Vieira Museo d' Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina was opened.

List of Projects

Awards and honors

Among the prizes that Álvaro Siza Vieira received for his work are the following highlighted:

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