Àlvaro Siza and the Fragmented City

• Main Author: Carlos Machado
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2015-07-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Architecture
• Subjects: álvaro siza; city; fragment; ruin
• Online Access: https://www.athensjournals.gr/architecture/2015-1-3-1-Machado.pdf

In Álvaro Siza’s work, between 1970 and 1980, the presence of the ruin results from his quest for a methodology that allows the inclusion of the city’s past and its remains as an important starting point to embrace reality in its broadest sense. Ruins found in the place were preserved as important references for the project to come. Proposed new forms were sometimes fragmented and the broken surfaces were used to relate or to bring together different aspects of reality. However, there were also invented ruins, intended as such and built as mediators between the pre-existing buildings and the new ones. Alvar Aalto and Fernando Távora, both important in Siza’s upbringing, had previously addressed the same theme – the Muuratsalo experimental house by Aalto and the Quinta da Conceição Park in Matosinhos by Távora are good examples of the use of the fragmented form. They paved the way to Siza’s practice as a mature architect. For Siza, there is no difference between architecture and urbanism. Aldo Rossi advocated the same idea, speaking of the transformation of monuments into city spaces and of the city distinguished by its various parts, studied and designed as such. The transformation of urban monuments over time and the conviction that the understanding of the city must come from the multiple inter-relations of its different singularities, also explains Siza’s fascination with the fragment and the collage, thus allowing to interpret his sketches where broken angels and architectural fragments come together and interact.