François Burkhardt intervista Álvaro Siza

Studio Álvaro Siza, Porto, July 19^th 2008
photo by FG+SG

François Burkhardt: What is, in your opinion, the reason why your work is so successful and elicits so much interest?
Alvaro Siza: In the Sixties I was practically unknown, not many people knew about me in Portugal and almost none in Spain. The event that made Portuguese architecture known was the revolution of 1974. As a result of the political moment Europe was going through, a lot of attention was focused on the Portuguese events. Only then many persons came to see what was going on, among them a number of architects as for instance Bernard Huet, then chief editor of “L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui“, who wrote on my work.
F.B.: If I’m not mistaken, the publication dates from 1978.
A.S.: Yes, but he had already visited the country before. He initially published my work for the SAAL¹ and then he dedicated a monographic issue to me. The first. I must mention another two persons who took an interest in my work at a very early stage. Even before Huet, Vittorio Gregotti wrote a very generous article published in “Controspazio“, and Oriol Bohigas published a feature in “Arquitectura Bis“. I must also mention Pierluigi Nicolin, who presented my works for the SAAL in “Lotus“.
F.B.: In that moment in history Portugal was subject to a strong Italian and Spanish, especially Italian, influence.
A.S.: Your invitation to participate in the “Design Week“ of 1975 also came as a surprise.
F.B.: In Berlin, you mean?
A.S.: It was strange for a Portuguese architect to receive an invitation to Berlin, along with internationally famous professionals, to present proposals for the integration of contemporary architecture in a historical environment. Nevertheless, we had very capable architects as Fernando Távora, a quite curious fact sine Tavora was a member of CIAM and he therefore knew all the architects of the TEAM X. He was somewhat reserved, and did not like his work to be diffused. I returned to Berlin in 1977 for the presentation of my exhibition, which was also shown at PAC in Milan. I was then invited to participate in the IBA² in Berlin and after that I began to work in Holland, also in that case dealing with a complex neighbourhood where 50% of the inhabitants were immigrants. It has been very difficult to free myself of the idea of being a specialist in participation projects, and I have had to do many competitions to find work in other sectors, because I needed a more ample design experiences.
F.B.: Your recognition in Portugal, on the other hand, came much later…
A.S.: In Portugal I was known in the years before 1974, when there were few architects and little work. The jobs all went to certain professionals who were very close to the regime and it was very hard to join this group. Later I did the Boa Nova project which did not meet with approval at first, and it was only after my work had been widely recognized that it managed to enjoy popular success. I was subsequently invited by a bank agency to design a number of branches. In that period I was already considered an architect who could do something for the image of a bank branch, it was the spirit of the period. But the SAAL has been disastrous for my career in Portugal, because after the political upheavals, those who had worked for this project were marginalized, the police began to investigate the architects who had participated, with the idea that they were militants of the far left party.

F.B.: You have built many villas for the middle classes; do you find this experience has proved useful when you have designed dwellings for the lower classes?
A.S.: Very. I remember that when I was beginning to work with the SAAL I was contacted by some students, because the school acted as liaison with the inhabitants of downtown Porto. They conducted studies of the old Bariel district, a very poor one in the centre of town, and the living conditions there. It was a terrible and very overpopulated area. Many families lived in only one room, with incredible social problems. Some students participated in the SAAL program because they lived there and were familiar with the problems of the inhabitants; Souto de Moura was one of them. We had long conversations, and they told me they were very interested in this program because they knew the people of S. Vital, who had asked for help, but they needed an architect. Some architects, who were politically involved, told me that I was not ready for a project like this because I was used to design houses for the middle classes. I replied to his objection by pointing out that I was actually the most expert of all, because designing a home for a family necessarily means to dialogue with the head of the family, the wife, the mother-in-law, the neighbour and the friend who doesn’t like the project. I am therefore used to dialogue. I believe it is the most important aspect in this kind of program, and in fact I later realized various works in a very short period of time, because the SAAL has lasted three years, many of which centred on the problem of dialogue, and only after a time did we manage to prepare a concrete project and build it. Project and dialogue had to proceed apace, with a comparison of ideas and concepts through discussion. There were others who saw it differently, who believed that one should prepare a detailed plan before building a house. Tavora, for instance, has done very important works for Miragaia, an area in the centre of the city, but in the end he did not build anything because he did not have time to proceed from plan to construction drawings. It is therefore a problem of strategy. We began by studying the social dwelling, the relationship between kitchen and living room and so on, but what we discussed, in the end, was the city. There were many groups in the centre which had organized themselves, there was a commission of architects and inhabitants and in the final phase of the discussion the theme of the research was the city. Towards the end the inhabitants had set up a commission, within the municipality, which discussed with the politicians; it was quite powerful. This is the connection I recognize, between the interior work and the preparation of the SAAL project.
F.B.: What have you been able to use, of the information provided by the people who participated in this project, and to what extent have you had to take their observations into account?
A.S.: Our discussions with people forced us to make an ampler and more creative reflection, something that was absolutely indispensable in order to be sure of what we were doing. There are many ways to achieve this certainty, but at that time there were none: the International Style had been buried by critics, above all by the CIAM, and the heroic period of the Thirties and Forties had come to an end. Every time the CIAM met the atmosphere was, on the one side, charged with anxiety and eagerness for change, and on the other full of difficulties associated with the definition of a basis for any evolution. In Italy neo-realism had provided a great boost, not only to architecture but also to movies, literature and so on. There were new references, for tackling a different way to conceive the work, and it was not the same as in the heroic years. Working with the inhabitants of Porto, and also in Holland – even if the political conditions were different there – has been very useful for purposes of identifying the role of the architect, what to do and what legitimacy to use in order to be able to intervene. Above all following a period in which I was working for a bank which had asked me to design a symbolic building, to create an eye-catching image; I find this side of architecture, as advertisement, quite deplorable. One may produce pretty buildings, but one nevertheless feels there is something gratuitous behind what one is doing. Just a few years later it became forbidden, unacceptable to speak about participation projects. An architect who dealt with this theme, which had been debated for many years in all the magazines, was considered despicable. Not without some reason, because some very bad architectures have been made with the excuse of participation.

F.B.: Does “the third way“ mean anything to you? In the research conducted by your team in Porto, at that time guided by Tavora, you sought for an alternative to a rationalism that was related to international modernism, but also very closely linked to speculation. You disagreed with producing an architecture associated with the regime, with the fascist party of the period, because it featured a monumentality distant from democratic principles, and you did not identify with the vernacular style that was gaining a foothold in southern Portugal, because it was more kitsch than the architecture. You have therefore, if I have understood you correctly, sought a third path, influenced by the research conducted by Tavora and by a group of Portuguese architects, and published in the book “Popular architecture in Portugal“. How has the recovery of a high quality popular architecture influenced your work? And until when? Because it seems to me that this development came to an end with the SAAL.
A.S.: It has wielded an enormous influence on all politically committed architectures. It has concerned a limited period of time, but it has resulted in really unitary works. It is no coincidence that “Architecture“, a magazine which has become a very important organ for the new generation, with Portas as chief editor, was launched in that period.
The so-called “Inquerito“³ involved the two architecture schools which existed, and which were completely opposed. The Inquerito elicited a general interest in Porto. In Lisbon, in that period, there was a school with close ties to the power; some of its members as Portas came to do the final tests in Porto, where Carlos Ramos, who has been a very important man, was working. The union with the political base has always been essential, because the study was paid by the government. The purposes of this study on national architecture was to investigate the direction it should take in Portugal. On the contrary, it served to challenge this vision of national architecture, and to highlight the differences and characteristic traits existing even within a very small territory. This has, in my opinion, been the most important aspect of the study. Not with regard to the architectural designs in the strict sense of the term, because it was clear that the production conditions were not the same in the Fifties and Sixties, and the designs could only serve marginally as basis for a true architectural renewal. It was a matter of spirit, and of attention to the relationship with the landscape, to the coexistence of different nuclei, villages etc.
F.B.: You are speaking of perennial, stable and continuous models, but you also stress a completely opposite phase, which you refer to as “temporary layering“. Unlike those who consider it perennial and eternal, you think of the landscape as something that changes continuously, and when I speak of layering, you assert that also in your work you expect new superimpositions will eventually change it. And so you don’t share this concept of architecture as something eternal. How do you manage to reconcile these two principle: an architecture which has something modern, and the transition?
A.S.: This is a very difficult question. But we are speaking of functionalism, I consider myself to be a functionalist.
F.B.: So you consider yourself as a functionalist? But are you really one?
A.S.: Certainly! The most difficult thing in an architectural project is to start. It’s like taking the extremities of a fabric and begin to unravel it, little by little. In my opinion, one of the most important extremities is function. To do this work, there has to be a fantastic functional program. The development of a project is the liberation from the respect for functions. Liberation in the sense of not respecting them, of suggesting something which may develop in many different directions. The most significant example has been evident in the design of a convent, a building designed for a community with a very special and unique life. If one considers this very special aspect of the category, one however realizes that convents have, in the course of history, often been adapted to any kind of use: museum, library, municipal hall, barracks, everything can be housed by a convent. This concept of function is important to me.
F.B.: You continue to insist on the idea of the transformation of things over time, that an architecture is entitled to become part of history alongside existing monuments. And when you speak of archaeology you use the term to explain that the tissue is layered, and that also works of architecture must be conceived as something ephemeral, which will come to an end and be covered by a new layer. You seem to accept this, unlike historians who interpret architecture as something which must never change, which is eternal and laid down like a law.
A.S.: This concept is very clear in relation to archaeology, because the layers which disappear leave traces. It is interesting to observe that it is possible to do something new with the existing information, and to succeed in doing it well, making it look like a discovery, as something original in reaction to a pre-established theme, and to then discover that it has already been done. There are traces, sometimes invisible but perceptible in subsequent works. In the Chiado, for instance, after the fire the walls of many buildings had collapsed, freeing a large space. Above, other blocks of houses had remained intact, connected by a steep street. There is a convent on this level, somewhat dilapidated but solid, which I visited to study how to intervene; afterwards I decided to reduce the depth of those houses and to create a court and a patio, on an intermediate level, in order to reduce the difference in height between this area and the street. There was also a terrace, and a court with stairs, where I planned to create a passage. I thought it would be a good solution to build a system of ramps and stairs, to create a path to the highest point, and I discovered this solution by visiting the place and studying it. Later an expert historian showed me an old etching from before the earthquake of Lisbon, where one could see that the stairs had already existed. The place maintained the trace, the influence of this past presence. It is in this sense that the eternal nature of architecture interests me: it does not remain like a mummy, but is consolidated, surfacing from a very demanding and precise analysis; it does not remain fixed but may change in every aspect.
F.B.: You began by studying art. Your architecture is characterized by a very striking sculptural expression. And in the final analysis you have always dreamed about being a sculptor. Can you imagine that you may, at a certain point, abandon architecture to dedicate yourself completely to sculpture?
A.S.: No, in the end I don’t seriously think so. I do when I suffer a disappointment at work, but I don’t really believe in changing, I’m afraid it’s too late by now. I like sculpture and design a lot as parallel experiences, as non-obligatory and amusing practices. But I’m sure there is an interpenetration between what I do as an architect and what I do as a hobby. The languages of painting, sculpture, architecture, movies, literature and music belong to the same family, there are no barriers between these activities. Today we live a kind of obsession with specialization, and this results in the erection of barriers, sometimes also because of corporative interests. I’m unable to see sculpture and architecture as separate entities. Anything sculptural is architectural, it is a kind of almost legitimate intrusion. The solutions to some challenges are often closer to sculpture than to anything else. The Ibere Camargo museum, for instance, is a very sculptural project, but this is almost inevitable, because it faces an enormous water surface. It looks like an ocean, but it is really a river. A green, small and not very deep strip. To insert a building into an area like this, a public building which must convey prestige, forces one to create a concise form which inevitably becomes sculptural to avoid the risk of dispersion and disappearance. Porto Alegre is a very dynamic city from various points of view, and it needed a project of this kind. The museum is solid, it is a sculptural block and I have designed it like that because I was guided in that direction by many feelings. It has been the only time, that I can remember, when I have met with widespread consent from the very beginning.