International Architecture Awards Tell a friend
ARCHIVE 2025
International Architecture Awards
Architects: Alvaro Siza Arquitecto, Lda.
Design Team: Maria Souto de Moura
Landscape Architects: João Gomes da Silva
General Contractor: Casais
Client: Fundação de Serralves
Photographers: FG+SG; Filipe Braga
The inauguration of the new building of the Serralves Museum marks a milestone in the history of the Serralves Foundation, paying a well-deserved tribute to Álvaro Siza – one of the greatest names in the history of world architecture.
This building underscores the close relationship between Serralves and the brilliant architect, spanning over three decades with the realization of significant projects under his authorship, inaugurated at different times: the construction of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (in 1999), the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira (in 2019), the Gardener's House (in 2021), the restoration of the Serralves Villa (in 2021), among many other projects executed in close collaboration.
In 2015, Álvaro Siza donated a significant part of his archive to this Foundation, which Serralves has since been processing and showcasing in numerous exhibitions, publications, and conferences, bringing Siza's work to the attention of a vast and diverse audience, both within and outside Portugal.
This complicity, filled predominantly with a deep emotional connection to this space and this continually evolving cultural project, led the Serralves Foundation, profoundly grateful for this shared journey, to name this new building the Álvaro Siza Wing.
Perfectly integrated into the landscape of the Park, the new Álvaro Siza Wing (Ala Álvaro Siza) is a building that doesn't impose itself, that doesn't pretend to be an imposing architectural gesture, but rather an expression of the natural growth of Serralves, like a new branch growing from a tree. It represents the expression of Serralves' natural growth while celebrating the global influence of Siza's work and solidifying Serralves as the place that brings together the most significant collection of buildings designed by the brilliant architect.
This new building hosts exhibitions dedicated to the Serralves Collection, which is, therefore, permanently displayed - but dynamically curated in successive exhibitions -, and to Architecture, one of the strategic axes of Serralves' mission.
Álvaro Siza Wing increased the construction area of the Serralves Museum by 33%. Comprising three floors (one for archives and two for exhibitions), this new wing adds 44% to the exhibition space and covers 75% of the reserve area. It was constructed in a very short period, only one year and a half.
This expansion came to allow, on one hand, the acquisition of new donations and deposits, and the continuous enhancement of the Serralves Collection, and on the other hand, the presentation of a unique narrative about Portuguese contemporary architecture and art, relating them to international authors and movements that contextualize and engage with them.
In fact, Álvaro Siza Wing provided Serralves with a unique envelopment to present and unfold the Serralves collection. With a constellation of intimate spaces and monumental galleries it matches the nature of the collection, from historical, mid-twentieth century paintings and sculptures to installations, video projections and immersive contemporary works that involve the inclusion and the perception of architecture spaces.
Álvaro Siza Wing also hosts an ambitious program of architecture exhibitions. The aim of this program is to show the work of some of the most forward-looking architects of our time and to develop exhibitions addressing through architecture some of the most important issues of our time, such as environment, social engagement, migrations, technological developments and cultural changes.
