Reflections and Leaps

architect Álvaro Siza Vieira
written by Vera Grimmer

 

Continuity has always been the foundation of Álvaro Siza’s entire body of work. Indeed, the ideas behind his earliest works keep reappearing throughout the 50 years of his activity, all the way to his latest realizations – from his first independent work, the Boa Nova restaurant, to the Shihlien office building, his first structure in China. Even his earliest works in Leça de Palmeira near Oporto on the Atlantic coast are not only a hint, but a clear definition, among other things, of his thoughts on the relationship between architecture and landscape, a theme that will keep reappearing, always in different variants, depending on the conditions of a particular place.