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Architects: ARX Portugal Arquitectos
- Area: 7844 m²
- Year: 2020
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Lead Architects: ARX Portugal, Arquitectos lda. José Mateus, Nuno Mateus
Text description provided by the architects. It was about designing the architectural project of a residential building for the corner lot located at the intersection of Castilho Street and Padre António Vieira. Until then, there was an office building - designed by architect Tomás Taveira - to which the new owner decided to give a new use, apartments, according to the high standards already present in the area. Among other buildings, the former Hotel Ritz.
The initial desire was to recycle part of the existing reinforced concrete structure, adapting it to a completely new program and architecture. The logical programmatic desire for the inclusion of balconies, as well as the observation, through surveys, that the constructed structure had deficiencies and was far from complying with current regulations of the discipline, would determine the demolition of a high percentage of the structure, which should be deeply reconfigured, reinforced, and extended.
The fact that the corner is located in an area where there are several buildings taller than what is common in the city, as well as the proximity to Parque Eduardo VII with a more ambitious scale, largely justify the volumetry of this tower.
Assuming this singularity in the urban context, the intention was to relate the building to the city in a broader sense, namely with the evocation of voids (present in most buildings), materiality (white stone), and sublimation of the luminosity and lightness so characteristic of Lisbon through textures and surfaces, whose expression varies with the evolution of light.
The urban relationship is also translated into the construction of new possibilities for enjoying the extraordinary surrounding landscape, which reaches 360 degrees on the upper floors, either through the creation of large balconies or by opening new openings oriented towards the south, towards the Tagus River and São Jorge Castle, in what was once a completely blind gable.
Finally, a crucial change is introduced with the change of the building's entrance door, previously on Rua Padre Vieira, to Rua Castilho in the direction of the monumental Parque Eduardo VII, with a scale more consistent with Castilho 203.
On a smaller scale of language definition, the aim was to avoid the idea of ostentation or extravagance, reflecting essentially on notions of nobility and quality of design in the various aspects of the project. Nobility that, in a first perception of the building, is felt in the treatment of surfaces, from material options to detail, where the aim is to explore, not so much an idea of ornamentation, but the expressive potential of matter.
The almost complete finishing of the facades with Vila Viçosa marble, the entrance in oxidized brass, balconies covered in bronze anodized aluminum, or the large windows and French doors, are the external signs of this logic. Inside, the first sign is located in the main atrium, designed with José Pedro Croft, where the space and the artist's work merge, incorporating the external landscape into perception games that will catch the attention of those who pass through that space.
This aspect is complemented by an extraordinarily demanding work in terms of details, which includes various original accessories designed for this work, such as the interior handle of the main door, the tap of the spa pool, and even - although its conception is not original to this building - the entirety of the exterior handles of the building and apartments.
The idea of noble scale is also explored and emphasized in the strong contrast between the stone grid that defines the facades, with a predominance of vertical lines, and the darker and warmer interior, characterized by the application of wood and dark bronze anodized aluminum. In the vertical stone lines, the introduction of fluting on their surface emphasizes verticality, elegance, and explores the expression of the mineral structure of the stone.
