Alvaro Siza: The Latest Architecture and News

In 1995, Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza packed a few changes of clothes, some poetry books and a single sketchbook as he set forth to Peru. These few items were all he needed to record and interpret his voyage, allowing him to integrate his investigations into his architecture. More than a half a century earlier, Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi ventured into the peaks of Macchu Picchu were he captured a famous series of portraits of the ancient Inca ruins. His project was more political, it acted as a re-appropriation of the site by its locals, but the tools of Chambi and Siza are the same: the production of images to define a reality.

The Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA) presents Alturas de Macchu Picchu: Martín Chambi – Álvaro Siza at work – an exhibit featuring thirty-five original sketches by Álvaro Siza alongside the historic 1920s photographs by Martín Chambi, now on view at in the CCA’s Octagonal Gallery until April 22, 2012. Continue reading for more information.

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“How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now” is a brand new exhibit at the San Francisco Modern Museum of Art. Co-created and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the exhibit was organized by Henry Urbach, SFMOMA’s Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design. Bringing attention to the wine industry and its integration with the latest artists, designers and architects the exhibit will be on display at SFMOMA until April. A main part of the exhibit is featuring the architectural spaces that house the wine making process, tastings, museums, etc. Some big name architects who have developed designs for cutting-edge wineries include: Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Herzog and de Meuron, Renzo Piano and Alvaro Siza.

The new building for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil designed by Portugal´s Alvaro Siza, is a big rectangular white concrete structure. It has a big central space enclose by circulations and exhibition spaces. Some of this circulations separate from the main body as arms going out through the facade.

I´ve always loved the big white orthogonal Siza buildings, and i think that this form is really informed by brazilian modernists, resulting on sculptural rock in front of the river with an amazing light use, a tradition on Siza´s works.

Pictures by Grazielle Bruscato, plans taken from Fundação Iberê Camargo.