Siza, Berlin and The Hague

“Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities. Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague” showcases at the CCA two seminal social housing projects by Álvaro Siza from the early 1980s.

“Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities. Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague”. View of the exhibition at the CCA
Siza’s participation in the SAAL Process1 following 1974 led to commissions for social housing in Berlin and The Hague in the 1980s. Known as Bonjour Tristesse (1982–1983) and Punt en Komma (1986–1989), these are his first built projects outside of Portugal and incorporate considerations that Siza explored earlier in Porto, where he approached housing on the scale of the neighborhood and within the context of a historic city.
“In juxtaposing these two projects, the exhibition points to certain fundamental and complex attributes and interests in the work of Álvaro Siza – the universal and the vernacular, the specificity of the generic and the monumentality of the ordinary. Together, they present possible models of an urban architecture at a time when the character of the twenty-first century city is yet again undergoing major transformation,” explains Eszter Steierhoffer, Curator of Contemporary Architecture at the CCA.
“Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities. Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague”. View of the exhibition at the CCA
“Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities. Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague”. View of the exhibition at the CCA © CCA, Montréal

Siza’s sensitivity to context and ways of living resulted in subtle architectural interventions in the urban fabric that mediated charged political and social climates. His façades and plans reinterpret the morphology and typologies of each city. Siza’s architecture has a truly urban character; the projects reveal themselves through the city, and the city reveals itself through the design of each building.

The exhibition presents two large-scale models and a selection of archival material – maps, drawings and sketches of the projects. It includes original drawings from the archive of the architect along with photographs of Bonjour Tristesse by Giovanni Chiaramonte, and photographs of Punt en Komma by Alessandra Chemollo and Peter de Ruig. Additionally, documentary photographs will be projected and accompanied by interviews with Adri Duivesteijn, former deputy mayor of The Hague who invited Siza to come work on the Schilderswijk neighbourhood and Brigitte Fleck who was responsible for competitions for the Senate of Berlin in the late 70s and proposed to invite Siza for several competitions.


until February 7, 2016
Corner, Block, Neighbourhood, Cities.
Álvaro Siza in Berlin and The Hague

curated by Eszter Steierhoffer
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920, rue Baile
Montréal, Québec

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