Making of an epoch - Eduardo Souto de Moura, 2011 Pritzker Prize Laureate

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Eduardo Souto de Moura, 2011 Pritzker Prize laureate—Balancing three decades of energy, resources, costs, social aspects to spurn a tale of relevant sensibility in traditional architecture and yet embodying a certain spirit of the visual, tangible and abstract to weave in today’s progressive design culture.

Where globalised frameworks mark the malaise of architecture in today’s times, Pritzker Prize Laureate 2011 acknowledges a genuine shift with respect to contextual contingencies- the practice of Eduardo Souto de Moura, Portugal. The representational picture depicts an architectural detail that becomes a motif of history- a lifetime of work engraved and added to legendary names in architecture. The Pritzker Prize legacy since 1979, formally connects The Hyatt Foundation with a commitment to “to honour annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture, it has often been described as “architecture’s most prestigious award” or as “the Nobel of architecture.”” Conferred with the highest possible honour in architecture this year, 58 year old Portuguese Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, since setting up his independent practice in 1980 has re-imagined the approach to built space with a diversified range of projects like the Braga Stadium, Portugal, Burgo Tower, restaurants, family homes, cinema halls etc. The projects showcased here ruminate on the spatial journey – dual role of an architect presented as a spectator to the global growth and as an analyst of its own culture.

There is nothing definitive about Souto de Moura’s work. His appeal lies in the coherent integrity of details. Referred to as a “Miesian architect”, Eduardo Souto de Moura dwells on an expression that relates to open and layered frozen narrative – one crafted with an elaborate human and local dimension. Phrasing his philosophy of work simply at Holcim Forum in 2004, he said, “For me, architecture is a global issue. There is no ecological architecture, no intelligent architecture and no sustainable architecture — there is only good architecture. There are always problems we must not neglect. For example, energy, resources, costs, social aspects — one must always pay attention to all these."

The idiosyncrasy that associates itself with a particular architectural era is subject to change yet it always has an affixed style. Reflection of the society that fosters and refines it, it symbolise a timeframe. Although, Eduardo Souto de Moura’s practice was nurtured in our time, it speaks of versatility. The main tangent is not a tone of glamour, but of subtle materiality and intimate spaces. This is true of over sixty projects that he has completed since 1980—most in his native Portugal, with a few designed in Spain, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom and Switzerland. The timeline traces a tale of projects of every scale. This subtle progression creates a dialogue between old and new, with a striking a contemporary balance. In the more domestic of environments like Casa des Artes, S.E.C. Cultural Centre, Porto, Portugal, the old and new coexist without being confronting. The duality subsists in form of a confident character of stone that revitalises the modernist expression of the interiors. Streamlined with honest material choices, the work comprises humble yet subtly outspoken residential projects. Built in the initial years of his practice around 1989-94, ‘House in “Bom Jesus”, Braga, Portugal’ is a concrete monolith frozen in semblance with local conventions. Contrasting gently in the natural colour of the surrounding environment, the house was singled out by the Pritzker Jury “for its uncommon richness throughout the subtle banding in the concrete of its exterior walls.” Sited on a steep hill overlooking the city of Braga, the contextual interpretation of House in Serra da Arrábida, Portugal (1994-2002) is seen across a host of five terraces with retainer walls. Each terrace demonstrates an individualistic engagement with the its functionality — fruit trees on the lowest level, a swimming pool on the next, the main parts of the house on the next, bedrooms on the fourth, and a planted forest on the top. The context and point of departure here anticipate a contemporary element. The projects lie in traditional of elemental composition, mapped along a specific path of movement of light, volume, and context—an equivocal exploitation of the potential of the locale and its prevailing culture. The experiential path also involves design classics and reinventing them. Adept and comfortable in the broad range of sources, Conversion of the Santa Maria do Bouro Convent into a State Inn, Amares, Portugal in 1989-97, delineates an aesthetic borrowed from the art deco of the past. A sophistication bound by history, four feet thick walls encase the state inn converted from a convent and monastery existing since the 12^th century, amidst the lush mountain‘scape’. Along the breadth of work with the time, an inherent paradox comes into play. Modern analogies also come to mind. In the 1991-2007, Burgo Tower in Porto, Portugal alludes to a new type of urbanity. Casting aside overt displays, the design emphasises a horizontal stress with one block while the other plays up on a vertical stress without taking up too much visual space. A sculpture by Ângelo de Sousa sits lightly next to the Tower. The genteel one-off statement makes discrete spatial connections between the developing urbanscape and the proportions of its design. Commenting on the project, Eduardo Souto de Moura says that “a twenty story office tower is an unusual project for me. I began my career building single family houses.” The potential for innovation comes forth in the move from marginal architecture to mainstream. Tracking a linear development with time, his work exhibits a progressive agenda. The experimentation resists any theoretical or ideological limitations. Part of the architecture scenography in public realm comprises of architectural project for the Porto Metro (subway), Porto, Portugal in 1997 to 2005 and Cinema House for Manoel de Oliveira Oporto, Portugal in 1998-2003. Exploration of constructs in this typology has a multifaceted character. The sensitivity caught up in the process of change is revealed in the construct of architecture project for the Braga Stadium, Braga, Portugal around 2000-2003. One of the sites of European soccer championships, the highly praised soccer stadium from a social standpoint deals with a new kind of urban environment and sense of community. To adher to these aspirations, a “powerful landscape” was formulated by blasting nearly a million and a half cubic yards of granite from the site and crushed to make concrete for the stadium. Solid and massively anchored, the stadium terminates at one end where the explosions have created a hundred foot high granite face. The designed space captures fragments of the coexistence of the natural with manmade construction as good architecture, as Eduardo Souto de Moura frames it. In his own words, “It was a drama to break down the mountain and make concrete from the stone.” These notions also reflect in the Jury’s citation, “…muscular, monumental and very much at home within its powerful landscape.” The expression of an idea and its interpretation coalesce together wonderfully in his work. The symbolic dimension of nature’s relation to architecture strikes one as the first component of logic in building forms. That connection established, the dialogue sustains in his later projects. The Paula Rêgo Museum in Cascais, Portugal, built during 2005-2009, is an intersection of volumes of varying heights in cohesive relation with the elevation of the ambient trees. Describing his project, he says, “After the painter Paulo Regio chose me as her architect, I was lucky to be able to choose the site. It was a fenced off forest with some open space in the middle. On the basis of the elevation of the trees, I proposed a set of volumes of varying heights. Developing this play between the artificial and nature helped define the exterior colour, red concrete, a colour in opposition to the green forest. Two large pyramids along the entrance axis prevent the project from being a neutral sum of boxes.” Simple yet rich material palette with robust finishes provides a physical link between the past and present. The metaphorical reference is induced by a series of continual changes that connects to Eduardo Souto de Moura’s distinct discipline. The thread that binds the work depicts a constructivist architecture with a feeling for materials, for space and for human proportions. Variety characterises the choreography of experience in space and in some ways exceeds the idealised view of humble architecture.

Talking about relevance, one starts to discover and the projects grow. In essence, the practice exudes an obvious humanism and respect for complexity and cultural variation. It speaks of a culture generated gradually through the consistency of a certain place. While it is not easy to identify the point of history you are dealing with, it marks the adaptability of the architect. While the contemporary ethos is big in technical and material innovation, Eduardo Souto de Moura’s spaces carve out forms assembled in light. The tacit use can be recalled in his exquisite use of materials -- granite, wood, marble, brick, steel, concrete -- as well as his unexpected use of colour. He elaborates on his take on restrictive materiality; “I avoid using endangered or protected species. I think we should use wood in moderation and replant our forests as we use the wood. We have to use wood because it is one of the finest materials available.” Rather than focusing singly on the architect’s statement, the buildings he constructed form the multifaceted background from which the style draws its influences.

Architecture is not supposed to be a neutral space; unaffected by a culture or history. Tradition is important when it contains moments of change. The sense of belonging to a construct is devolved owing to the transferred sensibility to futuristic and contemporary compatibility that is emerging. Modern tradition in theory combines a distinct drive that resists the bottomline of global architecture—boxy frames of glass and steel. What is fading away is a style or statement—the individualistic mark of an architect but in time is akin to a unique language of legacy thinking. Eduardo Souto de Moura’s work states that architecture is coming of age. Notions of a cultural context come into play with simple forms to frame the genre. What precedes is the reputation, the method, the signature one seeks lies in the randomness. These sculpted forms effortlessly make a statement about emerging architecture– an uplifting, humanising spirit in the midst of globalisation.

Citation from the Jury

During the past three decades, Portuguese architect Eduardo Souta de Moura has produced a body of work that is of our time but also carries echoes of architectural traditions. His oeuvre is convincing proof of modern idiom’s expressive potential and adaptability to distinct local situations. Always mindful of context, understood in the broadest sense, and grounded in place, time, and function, Souto de Moura’s architecture reinforces a sense of history while expanding the range of contemporary expression. Already in his first works, undertaken in the 1980s, Souto de Moura had a consistent approach that never adopted the trends of the moment. At that time, he was intensely out of fashion, having developed his individual path during the height of postmodernism. As we look back today, the early buildings may seem normal, but we must remember how brave they really were back then. The versatility of his practice is evident in the variety of commissions he has undertaken with success. He is capable of designing from domestic to urban scale. Many of his early works in the 1980s were single-family houses and remain among his seminal works. However, the scope of his work has expanded: the Braga Municipal Stadium, Portugal, designed in 2000 is muscular, monumental and very much at home within its powerful landscape; the Burgo Tower, Portugal, designed at the beginning of the 1990s and built a decade later, consists of two buildings side by side, one vertical and one horizontal with different scales, in dialogue with each other and the urban landscape; the Paulo Regio Museum, completed in 2008, a grouping of volumes interspersed in the trees at its site in Cascais, Portugal, is both civic and intimate, and so appropriate for the display of art. In their apparent formal simplicity, de Souto de Moura’s buildings weave together complex references to the characteristics of the region, landscape, site, and wider architectural history. Often simple geometries are underlined through interplay of solid and void or light and shadow. The restoration and adaptation of the Santa Maria Do Bouro Monastery into a hotel has taken a building from ruble to reinterpretation. Souto de Moura has created spaces that are both consistent with their history and modern in conception. The effectiveness of his works usually stems from the juxtaposition of elements and concepts. His unique capacity to embrace reality while employing abstraction creates an architectural language that transforms physicality into the metaphysical. Souto de Moura is an architect fascinated by the beauty and authenticity of materials. His knowledge of construction and skill with materials are always visible in his buildings. He has the confidence to use stone that is a thousand years old or to take inspiration from a modern detail by Mies van der Rohe. The thoughtful use of copper, stone, concrete and wood in the Cultural Center in Porto, completed in 1991, for example, is a testament to his ability to combine materials expressively. By modifying pavements, textures, pathways and public spaces for the subway system of Porto, he has granted new significance to public spaces. House Number Two, built in the town of Bom Jesus, Portugal, in 2007, has achieved an uncommon richness through the subtle banding in the concrete of its exterior walls. Eduardo Souto de Moura’s architecture it is not obvious, frivolous, or picturesque. It is imbued with intelligence and seriousness. His work requires an intense encounter not a quick glance. And like poetry, it is able to communicate emotionally to those who take the time to listen. His buildings have a unique ability to convey seemingly conflicting characteristics—power and modesty, bravado and subtlety, bold public authority and sense of intimacy—at the same time. For architecture that appears effortless, serene, and simple, and for the care and poetry that permeates each project, Eduardo Souta de Moura receives the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize.