Product Description

AV Monografias 208 SOUTO DE MOURA

AV Monografias 208 SOUTO DE MOURA

The work of Eduardo Souto de Moura is traversed by two axes at the intersection of which crystallize the exact forms of this demanding architecture: memory, nourished by the wide culture brought by travel and reading, but also deposited on the traces of territories and the already built; and matter, present in the geology of landscapes or the archaeology of cities, but equally affecting the technical constraints and the tangible residues of biographical experience. Memory and matter are reflected on their mutual mirrors or entangled in their simultaneous growth, and in those fertile overlaps of images and roots emerges a cerebral and sensual architecture, rigorous in its geometry and free in its language, timeless in its concern for continuity and contemporary in its endeavor to embrace the present.
In an earlier monograph I proposed the terms melancholy and metaphysics to define the spirit of the Porto architect, but both converge with the words used here to conceptually geolocate his work, like coordinates that mark the precise place where ideas meet forms. Melancholy demands memory, because the awareness of the passage of time threads nostalgias and recollections, building sensibility on the personal or shared narratives, so that a melancholic amnesiac seems inconceivable; and metaphysics can only be built on the materiality of physics, the precision of geometry, and the abstract rigor of the laws of nature, in order to gather the emotion of the tactile and the shiver of thought. The melancholy of Souto de Moura is not forgetful, nor is his metaphysics immaterial.
The tears and laughs of theater masks abridge the classical opposition between Heraclitus, who deplores the fleetingness of time, and Democritus, who celebrates the permanence of the physical, separating what architecture reconciles, memory and matter. If the Plato of the Symposium wrote that ‘beauty is the splendor of truth,’ here beauty is the splendor of sensibility and intelligence,
the splendor of memory and matter condensed in details. Evoking the dazzling intuition of William Blake, these works offer us the world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, because it holds infinity in the palm of its hand, and eternity in an hour. The Vatican and Venetian chapel that marks this journey’s end gathers memory and matter in the tiniest fragment, a grain of sand that contains a world and holds eternity in an hour.

AV Monografías 208 SOUTO DE MOURA
2012-2018

Obras seleccionadas   Selected Works

Pabellón multiusos, Viana do Castelo (Portugal)
Multipurpose Pavilion, Viana do Castelo (Portugal)
2000-2013

Reconversión del Sanatório dos Ferroviários, Covilhã (Portugal)
Sanatório dos Ferroviários Reconversion, Covilhã (Portugal)
2000-2014

Reconversión del centro histórico de Valença, Valença (Portugal)
Valença Historic Center Reconversion, Valença (Portugal)
2003-2013

Reconversión del convento de las Bernardas, Tavira (Portugal)
Bernardas Convent Reconversion, Tavira (Portugal)
2006-2012

Viviendas en Cantareira, Oporto (Portugal)
Residential Building in Cantareira, Porto (Portugal)
2006-2013

Casa en Oliveira do Douro, Oliveira do Douro (Portugal)
House in Oliveira do Douro, Oliveira do Douro (Portugal)
2006-2014

Equipamientos junto al lago Sete Cidades, São Miguel (Portugal)
Recreational Facilities by Sete Cidades Lake, São Miguel (Portugal)
2007-2013

Casas en las Azores, São Miguel (Portugal)
Houses in the Açores, São Miguel (Portugal)
2007-2014

Complejo turístico São Lourenço do Barrocal, Reguengos de Monsaraz (Portugal)
São Lourenço do Barrocal Resort, Reguengos de Monsaraz (Portugal)
2008-2016

Edificio en Senhora da Luz, Oporto (Portugal)
Building in Senhora da Luz, Porto (Portugal)
2009-2016

Museo Municipal Abade Pedrosa + MIEC, Santo Tirso (Portugal)
Abade Pedrosa Municipal Museum + MIEC, Santo Tirso (Portugal)
2010-2015

Casa do Conhecimento, Vila Verde (Portugal)
Casa do Conhecimento, Vila Verde (Portugal)
2010-2018

Planta de energía para la presa Foz Tua, Alijó (Portugal)
Power Plant for the Foz Tua Dam, Alijó (Portugal)
2011-2018

Edificio de oficinas, Marsella (Francia)
Office Building, Marseille (France)
2013-2016

Capilla del Vaticano para La Biennale di Venezia, Venecia (Italia)
Vatican Chapel for La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (Italy)
2018