Raw Material

The exhibition at the Serralves Museum in Porto offers an understanding of the processes associated with the inventory, classification, and conservation of Álvaro Siza’s archive.

“Raw Material: A View of the Archive of Álvaro Siza” brings together working materials produced in order to design and build 27 works of the Portuguese architect in Portugal. The exhibition presents plans, sketches, correspondence and photographs that offer a fuller understanding of the process of architectural design, beyond the self-sufficiency of the realized project.

Serralves Museum, “Raw Material: A View of the Archive of Álvaro Siza”, 2016 — **Top:** Álvaro Siza, studies for the Serralves Museum, Porto, 1991-1999. **Above:** Álvaro Siza, Casa Luís Rocha Ribeiro, Maia, 1960-1962

“Raw Material”, curated by architect André Tavares, will be the first exhibition to draw upon the recent gift to the Fundação de Serralves of 40 projects from the archive of Álvaro Siza as part of a collaboration between Fundação de Serralves, the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon.

Serralves Museum, Raw Material, Alvaro Siza, 2016 — Álvaro Siza, Museo de Serralves, notes on the preliminary functional program, Porto, 1991-1999

Álvaro Siza’s practice is distinguished by his use of drawing as a working instrument in the prefiguration of forms and spaces within the process that brings him successively closer to the desired result. But an archive is more than just a set of drawings. The architect’s correspondence with his clients, the photographic record of the places where the works are to be built, relations with regulatory authorities and the opinions of the multiple actors involved in the construction processes, the models that support the perception of the proposals, the minutes of meetings and reports of the tensions arising at the building sites are documents that record an infinite number of episodes that remain invisible in the finished work.

Álvaro Siza, Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, facilities study, 1987-1993

Left: Álvaro Siza, Casa Alves dos Santos, Póvoa de Varzim, lighting and electricity distribution notes, 1964-1968. Right: Álvaro Siza, Casa Maria Margarida Machado, Arcozelo, preliminary drawing, 1979-1983

from 16 June to 18 September 2016
opening 15 June at 6 pm
Raw Material: A View of the Archive of Álvaro Siza
Serralves Museum
R. Dom João de Castro, 210
Porto, Portugal

Raw Material

The exhibition at the Serralves Museum in Porto offers an understanding of the processes associated with the inventory, classification, and conservation of Álvaro Siza’s archive.

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