On a cool September evening, the yard of the Strelka Institute was full of listeners wrapped in blankets and drinking hot tea. Their interest is understandable: not only did Pritzker's 2011 laureate Eduardo Soutu de Moura visited Moscow, but also the topic of his lecture is as relevant as possible for the Russian capital. The old and the new are almost always a conflict, and especially in architecture. How to avoid this conflict, remembering the past and keeping up with the present - the Portuguese architect answered this and many other questions with specific examples from his own professional experience.
In the announcement of the event, it was stated that over 30 years of architectural practice, Eduardo Soutu de Moura has implemented about 60 projects closely related to the surrounding urban and natural landscape. Of course, the format of the lecture did not allow us to cover all of them, but the author spoke about several in some detail.
Two, perhaps, the most famous works of Eduardo Soutu de Moura - the Paula Rego Museum and the football stadium in Braga - acted as a kind of framing for the story. Both of these objects, in addition to the non-standard nature of their architectural solutions, are excellent examples of the well-coordinated interaction of nature and architecture. So, according to Moura, the intricate outlines of the museum plan of the famous Portuguese artist Paula Rego were born from the desire to preserve as many trees as possible on the construction site. The architect inscribed the pyramids of red concrete right between the trunks; the passage to the main volume is also decorated with shady greenery. In addition, when developing this project, Moura also took into account the peculiarities of the difficult terrain, which has a slope of 45 degrees. Thus, nature itself determined the shape of the building, but the color scheme was dictated by the development of the nearest town of Kayshkash, whose houses are made in reddish-ocher tones.
Another example of this kind is the stadium in Braga, built for the World Cup in 2004, which grows out of the rock, becoming its man-made continuation. Braga is a small and ancient Portuguese city located in the highlands. The architect chose the site for the construction of the stadium, carefully studying the topography, which ultimately determined the appearance of the structure. "I don't understand anything about football," admitted Eduardo Soutu de Moura, "but I decided that I could build a football stadium with just two stands, one of which is right in the rock." The stands are located opposite each other, there are no side walls between them, so that the view of the green slopes of the mountains opens directly from the football field. According to Moura, this idea was suggested to him by ancient Greek amphitheaters, in which it is the natural environment that plays the main role.
The construction process of the stadium turned out to be more than complicated and costly, in particular, due to the fact that there was a threat of collapses, and in order to avoid accidents, additional supporting structures had to be provided. The complex engineering solution of the stands and the construction of a huge space under the stands required a lot of time and effort, but the end result met expectations. The stadium, entirely made of concrete, is still amazing today.
The series of skyscraper projects presented at the lecture, carried out by the Portuguese architect recently, indicated a slightly different perspective on the problem of combining the old and the new. When designing high-rise dominants, the author necessarily refers to the cultural traditions of the region, its national and historical characteristics, boldly modernizing many techniques inherent in the architecture of this place. For example, for China, Eduardo Soutu de Moura designed two high-rise buildings, focusing on the ancient Chinese traditions of building Buddhist temples. And this is, first of all, harmony and symmetry. The architect said that he was working on many options, considering various configurations of buildings and the color palette of exterior finishes. For Buddhist temple architecture, the most characteristic figures are the circle and the octagon. It was these figures that the Portuguese architect used as the basis for the plan of future skyscrapers. And after that he took and turned the stylized religious buildings upside down. The result is a tower with a narrow base and massive top: fresh, innovative and at the same time an obvious dialogue with the cultural heritage of China.
The most controversial project presented at Strelka is the transformation of the 12th century monastery ruins into a complex of residential buildings. However, it is this work that most clearly reveals the stated topic of the lecture. The architect admitted that the project deserved a lot of criticism - both from potential buyers of apartments, and from the public, and even more from the lips of archaeologists who discovered even more ancient foundations of Arab settlements under the buildings of the monastery. Nevertheless, the project was implemented and put into operation.
Together, the architect and developer have done a tremendous job. The ruins of the nunnery have not been used for their intended purpose for a long time, the best evidence of which can be considered the factory buildings on the territory of the monastery, which by the time of the start of construction also turned into ruins. Eduardo Soutu de Moura, trying to preserve the spirit of the place and emphasize its rich history, created here a whole small town, in character most of all resembling an ancient Arab or antique settlement. Some of the buildings have been restored, some have been built from scratch. And since the monastery was built of stone mixed with earth (a very durable material that withstood even the terrible earthquake of 1755 in Lisbon), the architect tried to approach the prototype in the exterior decoration of the renovated walls, for which he used natural shades of sand, earth and clay. The not very attractive view from the windows of the apartments has been improved thanks to a large swimming pool in the courtyard of the complex. The picture was complemented by abundant green spaces and an orange garden. Today this residential complex is a protected landmark in Portugal.
In his talk, Eduardo Soutu de Moura compared the process of building a building to the domestication of wild coyotes. Trying to get closer to aggressive animals, a person is forced to live with them literally in the same cage and put himself in danger more than once before becoming their friend. “Starting the construction of a building, you never fully know what it will be like at the end,” said the architect. “At first, it often seems that new objects are roughly bumping into the environment. But time passes and you notice that in fact they are friendly and in tune with the environment. And, indeed, this delicate harmony of history, culture and nature runs like a red thread through the work of Eduardo Soutu de Moura, turning his buildings into indisputable landmarks of their time.
