From Colégio da Trindade to the House of Jurisprudence: the recovery of value

Abstract

The set of various interventions by Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus allows us to identify a singular work distinguished by its originality with the definition of an autonomous and proper path. The approach to spaces, by the architects, attributes a very sculptural character to the work, allowing to detect a methodology based on the definition of voids, originating from a subtraction of matter. This course, with national and international recognition among its peers, was very recently confirmed by a distinguished jury that conferred the Pessoa Award in its edition of 2017. It seems evident that in its design process the model has a primordial role, being particularly noteworthy the way plasticity of spaces is explored, leading to the limits where constructivity is relegated to 2nd place. That is, in some aspects, the way in which the solutions are presented is closer to a study of minimalist materialities, which resemble an exploratory work in a model, than of an expressive design in a constructive and detail systematization that has the concern of the resistance of the solution to the hardships of the climate in its different states of time.