Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman

Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - FacadeCentro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Door, Facade, ChairCentro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - FacadeCentro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Windows, FacadeCentro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - More Images+ 23

  • Consulting Architects: Artur Afonso
  • Landscape: Maria João Ferreira
  • Fire Safety Engineer: Palhas Lourenço
  • Design Team: Artur Afonso, John Gillham, Yugi Hsiao, Jing Liu, Snow Liu, Medha Singh
  • Local Architect: Paulo Pereira Almeida
  • City: Boticas
  • Country: Portugal
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Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Image 10 of 28
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Text description provided by the architects. Merging architecture and landscape, Centro de Artes Nadir Afonso links an emerging urban center with its pastoral environs. The1858-square-meter single artist museum fuses a light, lucid contemporaneity with the rich materiality and sustainability of Portuguese design to honor one of Portugal’s most beloved native sons, the artist Nadir Afonso. As well as paying homage to the artist, who formerly practiced architecture with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, the Centro, along with the artist’s foundation in nearby Chaves, will serve as an engine driving economic, cultural, and community development in the region. Sliced into a steep hillside, the new art museum is divided into two distinct, but connected, parts:  a light-filled cultural center looking out upon the intersection of a national highway and City Hall; and, nestled in the back, a vast, below-grade exhibition space topped by a green-roof park.

Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Image 6 of 28
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

THE URBAN FACE

In the double-height Entry Hall, a photomural of the artist and a continuous band of his sketches provide punches of bright color visible from the street. From here, the exhibition hall, outdoor café, children’s library and stairway to the auditorium beckon, as does the exterior auditorium that is designed to encourage informal civic engagement.

Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Image 16 of 28
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
Section

THE PASTORAL SIDE

Embedded in the hillside below a sustainably planted green roof, the exhibition hall is the heart of the museum. Since the exhibition walls are shorter than the exterior walls, visitors can view the art against a background of the surface of the rustic stone of the recycled cyclopean retaining walls, creating a unique feeling of viewing art within a lavish grotto.  While encouraging the perception of an indoor/outdoor layering of space, the proximity of the walls to the interior both blocks degrading direct sunlight and allows indirect daylight to reduce the museum’s carbon footprint. The green roof park, designed in the spirit of Nadir Alonso’s geometric abstraction and in the tradition of Roberto Burle Marx, also naturally modulates internal temperature while offering aesthetic delight to the community.

Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman - Table, Chair
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

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Project location

Address:Boticas, Portugal

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
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Cite: "Centro De Artes Nadir Afonso / Louise Braverman" 24 Mar 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/488464/centro-de-artes-nadir-afonso-louise-braverman> ISSN 0719-8884

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