2014 LIGHTNESS, LINES AND CIRCLES 236
Ever since we visited the coffee house on the water edge of the Douro in Porto in 1994, Café do Cais, we became fascinated by the practice founded by Cristina Guedes and Francisco Viera de Campos. There they defined the elements of a language all of their own. It is the proximity of the water that brings the reflections of light on the glass curtain and the still frame to oscillate, which make the materiality of the building disappear to a mere shadow of ourselves. We are invited to experience our body in space. Our own presence merges into the endless movement of wave like matrix of light and shadow. The next pavilion on the other side of the river, Ar de Rio Bar Esplanda accentuate the contrast between the still membrane and the glass curtain façade. These wagons, light as a butterfly, have provided more robust version of similar strategy. As in other projects, skins become structure. In particular the transparent honeycomb structure allow for greater intensity in the skin. Indeed, structure and skin become indistinguishable. Much of this thinking is apparent in the more recent projects.
In the industrial building Inapal Metal Autoeuropa in Palmela, it becomes clear the extend to which these procedure developed on a relatively small scale are capable of providing the strategy for a much larger project in industrial environment. The profile of metal sheet has contributed to this elegant structure. Allowing the iconography to emerge from the structure and material require a great deal of restrain and discipline of which Cristina Guedes and Francisco Vieira de Campos are clearly demonstrated. Indeed, confronted with completely different environment of the wine makers, Quinta do Vallado on the hills of the Douro they have responded appropriately in a different manner all together. The extension of the winery functions by gravity forces the understanding of the production system and requires great severity, discipline, and restriction on the layout of the building quota.
The tension between the artifice of the building and the character of the ground becomes the watershed of the project. The topography of the site plays a keyrole in the conception of this addition. While the traditional arched volt adopted structurally the exact placement of the addition is determinate both by the inner requirements of the program and the outer conditions of the site.These terraces from Roman time certainly have formed so much of the mostattractive landscape in Portugal. These conditions often have dictated some beautiful results. Here, the use of concrete and the placement of the addition in and out of the rock secure a small Chef d’Oeuvre. Finally the ropeway station to link the Portwine cellars to the river below promises to be a great urban contribution. With the station conceived as the shell of a boat and the station on the top almost curved in the rock we will have the pleasure of the greater complexity of the technology of transport housed in building that mediate between the urban tissue of the city and its latest development. Perhaps in this generation few could deliver such a diverse responses to a manifold of programs with such excellence that is always as difficult as it is rare.
Yehuda Emmanuel Safran
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2016 ARQUIPÉLAGO - CENTRO DE ARTES CONTEMPORÂNEAS
ATLANTIC MULTIMEDIA LABORATORY FOR THE ARTS, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY 239
This project at Ribeira Grande, situated on the north side of the principal island of the Azores archipelago, Ilha de São Miguel, has a demanding program.
The three architects who won the competition at the time, Cristina Guedes and Francisco Vieira de Campos of Menos é Mais (Moins c’estplus) Arquitectos office, were represented in the last Venice Biennale, ‘Reporting from the front’ with the ‘Teleférico de Gaia’, Oporto, together with João Mendes Ribeiro Arquitecto from Coimbra office, they have worked seven long years (2007-2014) to realize it on the outskirts of Ribeira Grande in a disused alcohol and tobacco factory. Perhaps only the silhouette of the industrial complex as seen from the sea has remain intact.
In our time there are great number of comparable programs just about everywhere in the world from Beijing to Dia Foundation in Beacon USA via Zurich, Torino and the Prada Foundation in Milan more recently.
But in no other project the rawness and original materials and forms has been transformed so deftly to such rewarding effect. What gives the visitor such a thrill is indeed that so much has been achieved with such a limited means.
The project consists of two different elements, the fabric of the original factory in stone and the large additional construction in concrete. In the latter, basalt sand was mixed to create a new material which resembled the basalt stone with which the existing structure was erected at the time. The void in the middle of the site defines and connects the two elements. Of course the fabric of the old factory had to be augmented and in many areas completely rebuilt. This strategy does add to the heterogeneity of the tissue of the “old” in the contrast with the “new” which is no longer experienced as such thank to the material composition. The smooth texture of the new structure mirrors the coarse character of the old stone structure held together, and very often rebuilt with slightly different color cement between the stones.
While the principal galleries, library and offices are accommodated in the original structure the new buildings provide polyvalent performance hall (Espaço Polivalente), study spaces and residents artists studios. Inspired by the Schaubuhne in Berlin conversion (1975) of the Cinema Universum of Erich Mendelson (1927), here in the Arquipelago they have created a similar wood and steel construction, which allows infinite different configuration of the performance hall with relatively simple mechanical means.
Not only are we given the aura of by gone industrial era without a whiff of nostalgia but the thrill of transformation which is completely open to an unspecified future.
Above all, the younger generation has been given a place in which they can enter into a Conversation with the entire world. What could engender dreams more than these multiplicities of stages and spaces, which are so inviting by being so reticence and by not asserting themselves at all? This is no doubt, also the result of what has been known as the “Oporto School” in architecture’s culture of our time. All three architect shave studied there. João Mendes Ribeiro, slightly older, worked with Távora, Cristina Guedes worked with Siza and Francisco Vieira de Campos worked with Souto de Moura. They have all acquired their reputation in varied projects in the past, as it is the practice in Portugal, teams of younger architects are often invited to compete for larger projects, thus this team was selected to compete for this project.
It is the good fortune of all that there in the middle ofAtlantic Ocean more than third of the way from Lisbon to Boston, there is this archipelago of islands whose elected officials with former president of the council, decided to invest their limited resources in such a project.
As Spinoza wrote, excellence is as rare as it is difficult. In designing and executing this Arquipelago of Contemporary Art in Ribeira Grande, Cristina Guedes, Francisco Vieira de Campos and João Mendes Ribeiro have given us an incomparable gift. They where able to transform a sad and nostalgic site into a site which announces an unprecedented future and fosters uncertainties fearlessly.
Against the dark earth of volcanic origin with it sever-changing sky, being at the eye of the recurrent cyclones and under the threat of earthquake, this new project announces a thrust into the future, in the earth, as nothing else could offer.
This project assures the island of its place not only geographically but also in world culture with its repertoire of memory with palate of materials and colors. The white cube announcing the entry with its industrial chimney intact announcing its past and its future. The relationship between natural light and architecture is always essential, but in these dark absorbing surfaces this relation acquires unprecedented depth. Just as the conventional outline of the old factory is played against the outline of the new, much to our surprise they reinforce each other. The just measure make the invisible idea of the good visible again.
Yehuda Emmanuel Safran
