Alvaro siza
1992 laureate
every design, says siza, is a rigorous attempt at capturing a concrete moment of a transitory image in all its nuances. the extent to which this transitory quality is captured comes through in the designs which will be more or less clear the more precise they are, the more vulnerable.
while working on a sizable office building design for porto, siza discounted any possibility of blending the new building by imitating its surroundings. the area was too important since it was between the historic center of the city and a bridge that has great significance because it was built by eiffel in 1866.
he explained, we have gone beyond the stage whereby unity of language was believed to be the universal solution for architectural problems. recognizing that complexity is the nature of the city, transformational movements take on very different forms.
siza, whose full name is alvaro joaquim de meio siza vieira, was born on june 25, 1933 in th...