15-06-2015

A house in Lisbon reworked by Aires Mateus

Ricardo Oliveira Alves,

Lisbon,

The refurbishment project of an old house in Lisbon by Portuguese architecture studio Aires Mateus is a journey through the intimacy of the architectural space explored by photographer Ricardo Oliveira Alves who captures its rather sacrosanct atmosphere.



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A house in Lisbon reworked by Aires Mateus The refurbishment project of an old house in Lisbon by Portuguese architecture studio Aires Mateus is a journey through the intimacy of the architectural space explored by photographer Ricardo Oliveira Alves who captures its rather sacrosanct atmosphere. 



Casa na Rua de São Mamede ao Caldas - the project name - was originally built back in the 1700s. The architectural firm Aires Mateus was tasked with refurbishing and extending the ground floor of this historical Lisbon hillside building immersed in a garden, between the medieval castle and the Romanesque cathedral in what can only be described as a strategic position.





Aires Mateus took up the task with complete respect for the existing spaces, adapting them to contemporary needs, and stripping back the marks of time rather than adding, to bring out the home's original floor plan, which was a series of communicating rooms.





The walls and ceilings were cleaned up and painted white, while the existing archways and openings and the original stone floor were restored. This design choice stresses the importance of the overall material of the house: the time-worn stone floor has now become a testimony to the centuries past.



A white box was added to the building to cover the client's need for more space. Structured on two levels, it opens onto the garden through large French windows, driving dialogue between indoors and outdoors. 





We can see the spaces delicately reconfigured or created by Aires Mateus in the pictures taken by Ricardo Oliveira Alves. This Portuguese photographer not only manages to capture the refurbishment and extension work, he also gets across the texture of the material, the cool air in the interiors, thereby communicating an almost sacrosanct atmosphere and energy in the spaces he has portrayed. A feeling accentuated by furnishing details like the long table in the dining room referencing a refectory. Casa na Rua de São Mamede ao Caldas by Aires Mateus is a project where the apparent minimalism is not a synonym for absence but rather inner richness.

Christiane Bürklein

Author: Manuel Aires Mateus, http://www.airesmateus.com/
Project leader: Bruno Anes
Collaborators: Valentino Capelo Sousa, Maria Rebelo Pinto, Ana Rita Rosa
Location: Lisbon
Construction date: 2003-2006
Photography: (c) Ricardo Oliveira Alves, http://ricardooliveiraalves.com/

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