Museu Serralves expansion building, Álvaro Siza Wing Porto architecture design, Portugal archives photos

Museu Serralves expansion by Álvaro Siza

Contemporary Building Project in Northern Portugal design by Álvaro Siza

18 + 17 February 2024 – new photos added

Expansion Of Museu Serralves By Álvaro Siza

opens February 24 With Inaugural Exhibitions

“Improbable Anagrams” will be the first exhibition of the Serralves Permanent Collection presented in the Álvaro Siza Wing, dedicated to hosting all future exhibitions on the collection “C.A.S.A” will showcase works from the Álvaro Siza archives, exploring the ‘House’, the genesis of all architecture

Open to the public February 24, 2024

photo Courtesy of Museu Serralves and Álvaro Siza

Museu Serralves expansion by Álvaro Siza Architect

Porto, Portugal, February 16, 2024 – Serralves Foundation announces the opening of the new Álvaro Siza Wing, the expansion of the Serralves Museum designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Álvaro Siza. The 45,000-square-foot expansion will be inaugurated by two major exhibitions: Improbable Anagrams, a permanent exhibition of a showcase of the Serralves Foundation’s collection spanning over 60 years, curated by Philippe Vergne, Museum Director, Ines Grosso, Chief Curator, Marta Almeida, Deputy Director, Ricardo Nicolau, Adjunct to the Director, Isabel Braga, Curator, Sonia Oliveira, Librarian and C.A.S.A., an acronym for “Coleção Álvaro Siza, Arquivo,” exhibiting works from the archives of Álvaro Siza Vieira, curated by António Choupina. The exhibitions will be open to the public from February 24 to August 24, 2024.

photo @ FG+SG

Following 18 months of planning and construction, the Álvaro Siza Wing consists of three floors—one floor dedicated to the archives of Serralves, and two floors for exhibitions of contemporary art and architecture, adding almost 50% more exhibition space and 75% more reserve space to the already large Museum. As a result, the additional space will allow for new acquisitions, donations, and deposits of important collections and archives. The new building is connected to the original Museum via an elevated gallery and is also accessible from the first floor. Outdoors, the existing landscape has been preserved; the recently built Wing celebrates the expression of natural growth and global influence on Álvaro Siza Vieira’s work.

photo @ FG+SG

The newly built Wing is located in Serralves Park, on the west side of the pre-existing building. The new building maintains a perfect relationship with the building complex and is constructed with reinforced concrete structural walls, plastered on the outside with cork insulation, and covered on the inside with double plasterboard. The exterior facades are plastered and painted with granite wainscoting around the entire building perimeter.

photo @ FG+SG

The inauguration of the Álvaro Siza Wing of Museu Serralves represents an important milestone in the history of the Serralves Foundation, while also paying tribute to one of the greatest names in architecture. The expansion underlines the historic relationship between Serralves and Siza. Over thirty years of collaborations have created a campus of Siza-designed buildings on the Serralves Estate; first with the establishment of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (1999), followed by the Manoel de Oliveira Cinema House (2019), then the construction of the Gardeners’ House (2021), and the restoration of the Serralves Art Déco Villa (2021).

Mindfully designed in concert with the landscape of Serralves Park, the Álvaro Siza Wing branches out from the original Museum in a gentle expression of Siza’s fidelity to organic form. Fully integrated into the landscape, the Wing houses the Serralves Collection, the Portuguese State Contemporary Art Collection, the BPP Collection, and the collections on deposit (FLAD, Leal Rios, Mário Teixeira da Silva among others), which encompass nearly 5,000 works of art. The Serralves Collection also includes an important collection of artists’ books and editions, comprising around 5,000 books. The building is also home to a large part of the important Siza archive.

photograph Courtesy of Museu Serralves and Álvaro Siza

“When the Serralves Museum opened its doors in 1999, Portugal had, for the first time in its history, a museum with the aim of promoting contemporary art and culture in its most diverse forms of expression. 25 years later, the Serralves Museum is a national and international benchmark, which in 2023 was visited by one million, one hundred and fifty thousand people. This museum deserved to overcome the limitations of space that constrained its capacity for artistic dissemination.

And that’s what brought us here: this building represents a new milestone for Serralves while paying a well-deserved tribute to Álvaro Siza – one of the greatest names in the history of world architecture. Here the Serralves Collection will be on permanent exhibition in a dynamic way, presenting different exhibitions over time and, at the same time, we will have dedicated space committed to architecture exhibitions and programs,” shares President of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Serralves Foundation, Ana Pinho.

photo @ FG+SG

Museu Serralves Director, Philippe Vergne, notes, “With a wing dedicated to the Permanent Collection and Architecture, the Serralves Museum is more than ever an institution where the present is fully activated and where the recent past is settled and decanted. It allows the institution to fully take responsibility for its history and legacy, as well as for its role as the leading institution in Portugal dedicated to the history and the present of contemporary art and culture.”

photo @ FG+SG

The Álvaro Siza Wing expands opportunities to present Serralves’ permanent collection. The inaugural exhibition, Improbable Anagrams, works in harmony with the expansion’s design to free visitors from a predetermined circuit and encourages dialogue between artists’ works across generations and countries of origin. Based on the figurative anagram, Improbable Anagrams reflect this freedom of movement and experience in its conceptual curation. The curatorial intention was to develop an exhibition that contained multiple possibilities for understanding. Improbable Anagrams is a reflection on how the Serralves Collection is a touchstone for the artistic-literary movements of the 1960s and 70s. Improbable Anagrams endeavors to trigger the greatest number of synapses possible, with the selection of works being shown encompassing over 160 works by 80 artists. Artists include Lourdes Castro, Paula Rego, Cabrita, and Julião Sarmento, who speak to the seminal role the artistic movements of the 1960s, 70s, and 80’s had on contemporary Portuguese artists, as well as a series of recently acquired works by younger artists such as Martine Syms, Ana Santos, Juliana Huxtable, Arthur Jafa, Rui Chafes, Alexandre Estrela, Korakrit Arunanondchai, and Sonia Almeida which offer a fresh perspective. With the resonating voice of Luisa Cuhna and her newly commissioned and site-specific work for Ala Álvaro Siza, Improbable Anagrams offers a reading of the Serralves collection focusing on unexpected dialogues between artists and their works. It is an open narrative, a porous interpretation of the Collection which invites the visitors to find what they were not looking for.

photo @ FG+SG

C.A.S.A., “Coleção Álvaro Siza, Arquivo,” doubles as the title for the exhibition of Siza’s archives and as a reference to the “House” as the genesis of all architecture; the house (“casa” in Portuguese) is an essential unit of urban and rural fabrics as well as familial and communal life. C.A.S.A. utilizes the Serralves Foundation Archive to strengthen the presentation of Siza’s work as a unique narrative about the development of contemporary Portuguese architecture. With a floor dedicated to architecture, the Álvaro Siza Wing serves as a House for the Serralves Collection. C.A.S.A. explores various Houses: Culture, Knowledge, Faith, Idleness, Commerce, Family, People, Work, and the house to the artists, the Studio. The archives are bolstered by art which Siza creates in addition to his architecture practice. Together, the nine segments of the exhibition reference each decade of Siza’s life. In 2015, Álvaro Siza bequeathed a significant portion of his archive to Serralves, making this exhibition possible.

photo @ FG+SG

The Álvaro Siza Wing is open to the public from February 24 with Improbable Anagrams and C.A.S.A.

Serralves Foundation

The mission of the Serralves Foundation is to increase awareness and knowledge amongst audiences from diverse backgrounds and ages, concerning contemporary art, architecture, cinema, environment, the landscape, and key societal issues. Created in 1989 as a private institution of public utility, the Foundation’s approach is based on its exceptional heritage assets, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Deco Villa, the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira (House of Cinema), and the Serralves Park, which were jointly classified as a National Monument in 2012.

photo @ FG+SG

Located in the city of Porto, the Serralves Foundation is one of Portugal’s most successful cultural institutions, with international recognition. For more information about the Serralves Institutions, visit serralves.pt.

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Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira

Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira was born in Matosinhos (near Porto), in 1933. From 1949-55 he studied at the School of Architecture, University of Porto. He taught at the School of Architecture (ESBAP) from l966-69 and was appointed Professor of “Construction” in 1976; he taught at the School of Architecture of Porto.

Siza is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, “Honorary Fellow” of the Royal Institute of British Architects, AIA/American Institute of Architects, Académie d’Architecture de France, and European Academy of Sciences and Arts and American Academy of Arts and Letters; Honorary Professor of Southeast University China and China Academy of Art and Honorary Partner of the Academy of Schools of Architecture and Urbanism of Portuguese language.

photo @ FG+SG

Throughout his career, Álvaro Siza has received numerous awards, distinctions, and other honors, including honorary doctorates. In 1988 Siza received the Gold Medal from the Madrid College of Architects; he was the first winner of the renowned Mies van der Rohe Contemporary Architecture Prize. In 1992, Siza was awarded the Pritzker Prize from the Hyatt Foundation and, 6 years later, the Alvar Aalto Medal, the Prince of Wales Prize from Harvard University, and the Imperial Prize of Japan. In 2002, he received the Golden Lion for the Best Project at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where 10 years later Siza would receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale; he also received the Urbanism Special Grand Prize of France in 2005 and the Spanish National Architecture Prize in 2019. Siza is the recipient of the highest honorary distinctions in Portugal and France. The academies of various countries have also honored him with several honoris causa in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, Brazil, Romania, Argentina, China and, of course, Portugal.

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About The Lead Curators

Exhibition Collection and Museum Director: Philippe Vergne – Philippe Vergne has served as director of Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, since April 2019. He was Director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) from 2014 to 2018. Prior to his appointment at MOCA, Vergne served for five years as director of the Dia Art Foundation, New York. Before his tenure at the Dia Foundation, Vergne was Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. From 1994 to 1997, Vergne was Director of MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Marseille, France.

Exhibition Architecture: António Choupina – António Choupina is an architect who graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto. He founded CH.A (CHoupina.Arquitectos) studio in 2010, the year in which he collaborated with the School of Arts and Design. He is responsible for the interventions in the Palace of Charles V in Granada and the Sverre Fehn Pavilion during the Official Visit of the Presidency of the Republic to Norway.

He recently accompanied the construction of the Álvaro Siza Pavilion at the China International Furniture Fair, with whom he has developed various cultural projects in partnership with Aedes Berlin, the Vitra Design Museum, and the Aga Khan Network. As a curator, Choupina has curated exhibitions at the Serralves Museum, the Nadir Afonso Museum, the Alfaro Foundation, the Tchoban Foundation, and the Marques da Silva Foundation, producing multiple publications on the frontiers of architecture, art, and philosophy. Choupina is the editor of A As Architecture Network, a jury for international awards, and a guest speaker at various institutions and events, such as Bauhaus100 and the International Architecture Design Forum.

photo @ FG+SG

Alvaro Siza

Alvaro Siza Vieira

Expansion of Museu Serralves by Álvaro Siza in Porto images / information received 170224

Location: Porto, Portugal, southwestern Europe

Serralves Building Designs

Contemporary Serralves Building Designs – recent architectural selection from e-architect below:

Garden Pavilion in Museu de Serralves, Jardins da Fundação de Serralves, Porto
Architects: Diogo Aguiar Studio

photo © Fernando Guerra
Garden Pavilion in Museu de Serralves in Porto