For Álvaro Siza, architecture is continuity and transformation. Starting with the thought and the look, with the material that comes from the pencil, it combines an attempt to understand our universe from a small partial order, in order to improve it later. The idea of the project as continuity calls for an understanding that the project is linked to events that took place before and will continue long after. The architect designs between times, merges his gestures with the environment, accommodating them, always aspiring for his projects to qualify places. This continuity between the project and the place, which is born when the drawing begins to decipher its keys, can be extended to the continuity of the drawing itself, from the first visit to the place to the process of the work, to this continuous drawing and, in reciprocity, to the hand that moves as the earth would like to move with the projects. In a reflection written about Aalto, Siza indicated that we should "include everything in the drawing", "take everything as a stimulus", alluding to the desire for everything to eventually find its place in the project."

Ángel García-Posada Biography

Architect from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Sevilla (2001), and PhD from the University of Seville (2008). He is a professor in the Department of Architectural Projects at the University of Seville and editorial director of the Arquia Foundation collections. He is the author and editor of several books and numerous articles in architecture and art magazines. He has participated in various research projects on the relationship between architecture and landscape, transfers between art and architecture and the notion of time in architecture, art and territory. He develops his activity in architecture, teaching and research from a transversal understanding of culture and the continuity between project and research. He is currently co-director of the XVI Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.

Scientific Research and Technological Development Project on the Architecture of Álvaro Siza Vieira FCT: SIZA/CPT/0021/2019

Funded by:

FCT, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education; Ministry of Culture; FAUP; CEAU.

Supported by:

Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis; Fundação de Serralves; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian; CCA; Drawing Matter; Casa da Arquitectura; Fundação Marques da Silva, Irmandade dos Clérigos and Conservatório de Música do Porto.