Recent Projects // Aires Mateus e Associados

A public lecture by Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus.

Recent projects, Aires Mateus e Associados, Lisbon.

Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus is based in Lisbon. Following an early collaboration with architect Gonçalo Byrne, in 1988 he founded the office Aires Mateus & Associados with his brother Francisco. Connected to Siza’s Porto School, with its emphasis on contextualism and sculptural austerity, the work of the practice quickly achieved iconical status within contemporary Portuguese architecture. Their projects are characterised by materiality, mass and the muteness of abstraction, translating traditional Portuguese forms into detail-free surfaces within typical yet special places. The work of the studio is very diverse ranging from unique housing projects to larger scale public buildings embedded in fine-grained historical contexts or breathtaking Mediterranean landscapes.

Manuel Aires Mateus' visit to Christchurch is supported by the University of Auckland School of Architecture & Planning, GIB, the Warren Trust and the Canterbury Branch of the NZIA.