C 03 75
«The place is very
important, the
context. But in many
cases it is necessary to
go beyond in order to
find new things»
ed to switch careers, but then, when I actually
started, it was a very stimulating moment:
the School had a new director, a new team of
young people, and all of this coincidentally
at time when the Regime was opening up. I
was enthusiastic. I also devoted some time
to painting. Later I married an exceptional
painter and, when I looked at her drawings I
thought “what’s the point of my painting?”
VV: It happens with painters, who have
their own way of painting, and it becomes an
identifiable brand. The same thing happens
to you: you give your architecture a personal
stamp. But sometimes the author needs to
do something different, driven by a need for
expressive freedom. Have you felt that temp-
tation?
AS: Of suddenly changing? Yes, but I must
say that it didn’t come from outside, but from
the work circumstances. Usually the work
itself makes me want to change. Some time
ago I was commissioned to build a house
somewhere where there were only three or
four ugly houses. A flat site; an area with no
history, no geography… The client, who was
very nice and open, asked for a solution, but
didn’t want anything in particular. Everything
was very neutral, and I didn’t know what to
do. Then, when I began, I coincidentally vis-
ited a work in Vienna by Adolf Loos, whom I
wasn’t too interested in I must say. I looked
at the photos: a window here, a window there,
and thought: “What’s with this confusion?”
But I went into his Müller House, and there
I realized that the windows were all in place.
It wasn’t modulation, proportion, nothing.
I saw that the rigor in how these windows
were arranged and the secret to their overall
unity was that they were born from the inte-
rior. And they were born as a complement of
an overall project, and therefore, though at
the beginning one might not understand it,
there was magnetism: it was totally authentic,
there were no tricks. It was sublime. When
I returned to Porto, I further developed the
theme of the windows, and it was Frampton
who identified the direct influence. The place
is very important, the context. But in many
cases it is necessary to go beyond in order to
find new things.
VV: But in the pavilion you did in Lisbon,
for the International Exposition, you designed
a canopy that wasn’t Siza-like.
AS: It’s true that it didn’t look it. And I like
that. When I designed the Serpentine Gallery
Pavilion in London with Souto de Moura,
a friend of Eduardo told him “this project
doesn’t look yours,” and another friend said
the same to me. And this happens because
the theme is different, and there is something
non-recognizable that comes from the differ-
ent work circumstances, from open stimuli.
In the case of the Lisbon project they were
asking for something the use of which was
unknown (even today I don’t know what it’s
for). They wanted a large space to welcome
people. I started out with a large slab with
columns, many columns, as Niemeyer would
do. I sized up a series of options that were non-
sense and, then, one day a very good engineer
came along, and he didn’t want columns: he
wanted to build a large dome. But that didn’t
work, it didn’t offer shelter because it was very
tall. The curve of the dome had to be upside
down. And I thought: “Is this feasible?” Then
I thought about a solution using a plastic
sheet, though I wanted something hard and
heavy. Finally, the engineer tendered a simple
solution: braces wrapped in 20 centimeters of
concrete and then a series of tubes. Everything
was quite prosaic actually.
VV: I had the feeling that it was rather a
display of an acrobatic move, and thought that
wasn’t something you would do…
AS: There is a fun anecdote. At the pavilion
I drew some furniture pieces, and the woman
who directed the Expo told me: “Siza, be care-
ful because Coll has to sit on that chair, and
he has a very big b...” And then I drew a big
chair. But later there was a ceremony and
Sampaio?, who was small, sat on it, so his
feet were dangling…
VV: It draws my attention that you have
