Álvaro Siza Interview by José Salgado - The HOUSE in Roberto Ivens
Exclusive Interview in ultimasreportagens.com

"To talk about a house is not simply to refer to the dimensions of its rooms or to carefully describe the relationships between its spaces. It is these things as well, but, no matter how rigorous this information may be, it will never be enough to achieve a satisfactory portrait of the thing that which is the most relevant when we speak about houses: those moments in life when they are, or were the protagonist.
Ultimately, a house is a thing. But, being a thing, it however suffers from an irresistible tendency to “un-thing” itself. This is part of its genetic code. Its nature is forever pushing us into other places and interfering in other matters. It is as if, to talk about houses is to plunge into the immeasurable bottomless well of human matters.
Each house is a special case.
It is a special case even before its construction. It begins in the will of someone who declares: “do it” and continues with the process of sedimentation that confers depth to the story’s narrative - both its own narrative and the other more general one, to which it inevitably belongs.
In many cases, noteworthy or important situations exist from the outset. In some other cases, not.
For the house that justifies these lines to become a case worthy of particular interest, countless factors had to come together, factors that were obviously alien and unsuspected for those who until quite recently had had with it any kind of relationship. We are talking about the house at nº 582, Rua Roberto Ivens, in Matosinhos. It occupies approximately 84 square metres of a site of 423 square meters. In the patio to the rear there is a small pavilion of 9m2.
The significance of this house resides in the fact that it is the family house of architect Álvaro Siza Vieira; that it has been refurbished by him and that it has been purchased by the Municipality of Matosinhos to house a Documentation Centre relating to the life and work of the architect.
It is a three storey house, whose building was commissioned in the mid 19th century by José Gonçalves de Lima Camacho (1835-1892) a returning immigrant who made his fortune in Brasil and was the great grand-father, on his mother’s side, of the architect. Because every so often, when talking about houses also means talking about architecture, we have decided to transcribe the essence of a conversation with the architect Álvaro Siza on the subject of this house." (more)

About opening the latest issue of GEO
A text by FG

When, 24 years ago, at the age of 16, I started to become interested in photography, I didn’t want to photograph houses, but the people who lived in them. I only wanted architecture to serve as the stage for the short stories I would tell little by little when I would return from a trip, or after a simple day of picture-taking in Lisbon.

My first 15 years of images consisted mainly of photographing people on the street. Travelling to take pictures became an obsession. Back then, I liked to think that I would become a photographer for magazines like National Geographic or GEO, the European reference for travel photography and journalism. I had never worked for either, alas. I did not have the stories or images they felt deserved special attention or which simply had a complete and mature narrative, which is not surprising at the age of 16 or 17. They were single images of special moments grouped together in a personal diary that I rarely shared with others. Like any amateur, it was a simple desire to keep what I thought worth keeping. It was a hobby, pure and simple, and not a full-time job. My profession would always be architecture. Photography would fill in the intervals. Obviously, I got it wrong. After a number of years working as an architect and teacher, my path, for a whole number of reasons, took a different turn.

After all those years and increasingly removed from street reporting, two months ago I received an invitation to participate in the June edition of German GEO. They proposed that I open the magazine’s “showcase” page, curiously with an architectural image, which is an unexpected honour, seeing that it is not the magazine’s main theme. The chosen image, well-known from its reproduction in different specialist magazines, depicts a guide’s first day at work at the entrance to the Portugal Pavilion, designed by architect Ricardo Bak Gorden, at the World’s Fair in Saragossa in June 2008.

In some ways, this outcome in paper has felt like the completion of a circle, or the fulfilment of a desire I had almost forgotten, by including my images in a publication of this type. The unexpected feedback has been great, with many readers sending messages asking to see the series' remaining images along with various requests for copies.

Today I move in a editorial world parallel to that of travel magazines and with different responsibilities. This edition of GEO and the interest of its readership provides an excellent excuse to bring to ultimasreportagens some elements of this first body of work in which I learnt to photograph people at the right moment, waiting for light and controlling the shadows, essential factors that come together like layers in my daily work and which today mark my architectural photography.

I’ll choose some...

A intervenção abrangeu a longa avenida marginal da cidade desde o Forte de S. Brás até às piscinas de São Pedro, tendo por objectivo principal a edificação de um novo cais para navios de passageiros.
Decorrente das opções de planeamento para a ampliação e reordenamento do Porto de Ponta Delgada e Zona Envolvente, foi definido um programa de reestruturação das instalações portuárias, separando as zonas de transporte de mercadorias e de pesca industrial das áreas de transporte de passageiros e de recreio marítimo. As novas infra-estruturas incluem uma marina de recreio, uma nova piscina oceânica, um novo passeio marítimo, um parque de estacionamento, um pavilhão para eventos, lojas e restaurantes.

A nova paisagem edificada opõem uma morfologia mais complexa à regularização que a Avenida Marginal instaurara a meio do século passado. Esta sinuosidade permite uma maior variedade de situações ao longo da orla marítima e novas relações entre os espaços edificados e o mar. De tal forma que a reformulação paisagística em conjunto com a expansão de actividades lúdicas e comerciais, espera-se constituirá um contexto mais vivo e mundano para a frente de mar da cidade. Pretendeu-se mostrar, que ao contrário da prática corrente em Portugal, há sempre margem para o "desenho" na construção de uma grande infra-estrutura.


The intervention has encompassed the city's long, coastal avenue from the São Brás Fort to the São Pedro pools, its main objective being the building of a new passenger boat terminal. As a consequence of the planning options for redevelopment and enlargement of the Ponta Delgada port and surrounding area, a restructuring programme of the port installations was drawn up separating the merchandise transport and industrial fishing zones from recreational areas. New infrastructures include a recreational marina, a new ocean pool, a new boardwalk, a car park, an event pavilion, shops and restaurants.

The newly built landscape contrasts a more complex morphology with the regularization imposed by the Avenida Marginal in the middle of the last century. This sinuosity allows for greater situational variation along the coastline and new relations between the buildings and the sea. The landscape modifications together with the expansion of leisure and commercial activities are expected to constitute a more lively and worldly context for the city's seafront. Contrary to current practice in Portugal, an attempt has been made to show that there is always a margin for "design" in large infrastructure projects.

Fernando Guerra passa a partir de Dezembro de 2008, a ser representado pela principal agência de fotografia de arquitectura, a View Pictures.
Representando mais de 40 fotógrafos de todo o mundo é a agência que fornece as principais reportagens de fotografia de arquitectura para revistas como Architectural Review, ICON, Blueprint, entre muitas outras.
Para os clientes da FG+SG acaba por ser mais um veículo de divulgação dos seus projectos nacionais em todo o mundo.
A edição de Novembro da newsletter da View inclui um breve texto sobre a experiência de fotografar para Álvaro Siza.

"On Siza...

One of Siza’s projects that has affected me the most is the Anyang pavillion, 30km south of Seoul in South Korea.

When we travel to the other side of the world, we can’t postpone a session due to poor weather or insufficient conditions. We have to create the images with no excuses. Thus, during the summer of 2006, I went to Anyang to photograph the small pavilion built on an open square carved into the mountain, and I was greeted by a week of incessant rain. It was one of my first projects for the studio and I couldn’t nor wanted to make excuses for an incomplete or insufficient piece of work. Filled with anxiety, I did what I had to do: I took pictures...
And it was worth it: The rain became part of the session, providing an unusual atmosphere. The fog ended up hiding some of the less interesting buildings nearby, and the gushing water created cascades that I have not seen since during recent visits to the building. To complicate matters, that same week inside the pavilion, on the only day I had other people working on the project, I did not have my tripod with me, for various reasons. I had to improvise using an old picnic table I found close to the pavilion to support the camera and provide the stability I required. Some images had an exposure of 4 seconds, but the improvisation worked.

The photographs I took on those days were published all over the world, and in their own way helped Siza win several distinctions such as an award from Wallpaper* magazine in 2006 as the gallery of the year. My most published photograph is probably the one of the girl on the inside by the window which was the cover image for different magazines like Casabella or the Japanese, A+U, among many others. It went well. And it was worth it. It was the start of a collaboration that has turned into a friendship of which I am proud.

Long before pointing a lens at his work, I would buy magazines and books containing his projects and visited his buildings more with the curiosity of an architect than a photographer. To be able to share a close relationship with a master is an honour that one never completely becomes accustomed to, but which we easily forget when taking a stroll or sharing a meal, above all because Siza closes the distance with his natural manner. He’s the antithesis of an inaccessible media star.

Working with Siza today is above all like working with a client who surprises me each time I am confronted with one of his works. The attention to detail, his dedication to the project’s design is total, despite his 75 years. On a trip we took together to Japan this past September, his energy left me thinking that I was the one who was his age. When he is recognised on the streets of central Tokyo and stops to sign autographs for his admirers, one understands even more the dimensions of his work. He’s an example for all Portuguese architects, and one whose recognition continues outside of Portugal, now with the important gold medal from RIBA.

Practising architecture does not imply its publication. Neither is this Siza’s objective. He works because he’s an architect and architecture is within him. He expresses it and it emanates from him. It is up to us to visit and divulge it. In the public domain, the recognition of a building’s “exceptional” nature is often through photographs. This means that in order to reach a wider audience, the architect depends a great deal on who photographs it, and principally on the way it is photographed. With Siza, his ample spaces are always conditioned through absolute control of light. I only hope I can continue to do justice to this light with the same enchantment that I had when I studied architecture and used it as a reference point in my small projects.
Fernando Guerra

At present Fernando Guerra has photographed more than 40 of Álvaro Siza’s works and continues to photograph new works for the studio on a monthly basis. "

All images copyright Zaha Hadid Architects/ FG+SG

O Pavilhão Ponte é uma área de exposição interactiva dedicada ao tema da água e da sustentabilidade, integrando uma ponte pedonal que funciona como porta de entrada na Expo Zaragoza 2008.
Fernando Guerra foi recentemente comissionado pela arquitecta Zaha Hadid para captar a forte atmosfera desta grande infra-estrutura, uma das peças arquitectónicas de maior relevo na Exposição Internacional e palco da exibição temática intitulada «Água, Recurso Único». (mais)

The Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion is an interactive exhibition area focusing on water sustainability, integrating a pedestrian bridge to perform as gateway for the Zaragoza Expo 2008.
Fernando Guerra was recently commissioned by Zaha Hadid to capture the striking atmosphere of this massive structure, one of the highlights of the Expo and the venue for an exhibition titled «Water, a Unique Resource». (more)