Eduardo Souto de Moura: The Latest Architecture and News

Eduardo Souto de Moura was awarded the Pritzker Prize just last week (our coverage of the ceremony here). This video takes a look inside Souto de Moura’s office in Porto and the surrounding city including his Burgo Tower which has become a landmark. Also taking a look at scale the video displays a wide variety of his work throughout Portugal in varying scales from a single family home to the Braga Stadium.

Last night we had the honor of attending the 2011 Pritzker Prize Ceremony in Washington D.C., where Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura received this important recognition.

This was the third time we attended the event (after 2009 in Buenos Aires and 2010 in New York) and it was a special evening, not only because of the renowned architects attending the event, but also for the presenting speech by President Barack Obama. Obama, a friend of the Pritzker family, delivered a short but interesting speech to Souto de Moura and the architects. Obama’s interest in architecture goes way back as we’ve heard him state that he thought he could be an architect, but as he said at the speech “I expected to be more creative than I turned out, so I had to go into politics instead”.

It’s worth mentioning that Obama referred to the Pritzker Prize as the Nobel of architecture, a common comparison that puts the importance of this recognition in context.

After several mentions to architecture, his hometown Chicago, Mies (his campaign HQ was in a Mies building), Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Jefferson’s Monticello, he mentioned that architecture is about “creating buildings and spaces that inspire us, that help us do our jobs, that bring us together, and that become, at their best, works of art that we can move through and live in. And in the end, that’s why architecture can be considered the most democratic of art forms“.

About Souto de Moura’s work he mentioned that it was “effortless and beautiful”, and he highlighted the fact that the Braga Stadium was a democratic building, as he not only served the audience but people on the outside.

After Obama and Lord Palumbo (chairman of the Pritzker jury) Eduardo Souto de Moura accepted his recognition, and said something very interesting that made me understand contemporary Portuguese architecture. He developed his work during the 1974 revolution in Portugal, after which the country required to give housing to millions of people. At that time post modernism was starting strong in the country, but that wasn´t the way to do housing (with columns and arches), which led to a late modernism that we see on his works, which in my opinion became a legacy to the new generation of Portuguese architects. More photos after the break:

Architecture filmmaker Vítor Gabriel shared with us this incredible video of the Casa das Histórias, Paula Rego Museum, one of the most recent works by 2011 Pritzker Laureate Eduardo Souto de Moura.

Portuguese architectural photographer Fernando Guerra FG + SG shared with us a photo set of the Burgo Tower (2007), designed by the 2011 Pritzker laureate Eduardo Souto de Moura.

The building, located in Porto, was described by the Pirtzker jury as “…two buildings side by side, one vertical and one horizontal with different scales, in dialogue with each other and the urban landscape.” Souto de Moura commented that “a twenty story office tower is an unusual project for me. I began my career building single family houses.”

More photos of the Burgo Tower after the break: