Alvaro Siza Vieria

Álvaro Siza Vieira

Álvaro Siza Vieira architect, graduated from the former School of Fine Arts, University of Porto in 1955. Later known as FAUP – Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto.

1954 saw his first completed project – four houses in Matosinhos near Porto, the same year he opened his private practice. Though Siza had an admiration for the works of Adolf Loos, Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto, early on he established his own language based on the international modernist references and building tradition of Portugal.

Among Siza’s earliest works at a rural coastal location north of Porto was a public pool complex at Leça da Palmeira (1960s), and Casa de Chá da Boa Nova (1963).

In 1977, following the revolution in Portugal, the municipal government of Évora commissioned Siza to plan a housing project – Quinta da Malagueira – in the rural outskirts of the town.

Siza was also a member of the team which reconstructed Chiado, the historic centre of Lisbon destroyed by a fire in 1988. Other notable projects include the Faculty of Architecture (1987–93), and the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art  (1997).  In 2005 Siza collaborated with fellow prize winning architect Souto de Moura on London’s Serpentine Pavilion, and in 2014 exhibited at the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Álvaro Siza Vieira architect was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1992.