Contemporary places

Côa Museum
It was designed as a lookout point overlooking the landscape, a prime location from which to admire the Archaeological Park of the Côa Valley and the Winegrowing Upper Douro. Architects Camilo Rebelo and Tiago Pimentel have created a timeless building, in tune with the present and the prehistory, generating a whispered dialogue with the surrounding hills and valleys (magical places hiding the archaeological finds of this territory). The concrete with mineral pigments accentuates this fusion, creating a soft passage between the exterior and the interior. The museum is entered via a ramp and inside you are shown Côa’s rock art legacy through images, replicas and information. There are also three rooms for temporary exhibitions.

Archipelago - Contemporary Arts Centre
Its colour is that of lava and it has a serene force that sublimates the forms. Basalt, reinforced concrete and white surfaces create a chromatic interplay that celebrates the past and highlights the present, starting by giving visitors a strong sense of place. It is, after all, on the Azores and here the millennia, the centuries and the decades weigh have a special importance. The Archipelago opened in 2015 to exhibit the best in contemporary art. It was designed by the firm Menos é Mais Arquitectos with João Mendes Ribeiro, rising from the ruins of an old alcohol and tobacco factory, to which some new constructions were added. The centre is already a national architectural highlight.

CAA - Águeda Arts Centre
A three-pronged propeller suspended above a square. But a new square, created by this huge concrete propeller, bringing about encounters and conversations, in the same vein as ​​an agora, the central public spaces of Ancient Greece. This is the first impression given by the CAA - Centro de Artes de Águeda. Opened in 2017, it has filled a gap in this city’s cultural programme, doing so through its exhibition room, auditorium and concert-café, as well as a pedagogical space and a bookshop. It was built on the site of an old ceramics factory and there is still a chimney to bear witness of these times. This chimney generates one of the most intelligent elements of the project, an interchange between matter and spectres. To explain this interchange: the shadow of the chimney is projected onto the façade of the building and there is a recess in that same facade where the chimney could fit, and which the shadow occupies for a few moments during the day. The minds behind these ideas are Bruno André and Francisco Salgado, whose firm AND-RÉ is based in Oporto.

Sines Arts Centre
This arts centre suggests the walls of a great castle, standing before the entrance to the historic centre of Sines. As such, it seems as if it’s been there for centuries, although it has a marked contemporary identity, made of polished materials and synthesis in the forms. The project by the firm Aires Mateus has given the city a new focus, a magnetic field with cultural and artistic force, seeking to revitalise an area previously in decline. On the surface it appears as two bodies cut though by a road, but underground it is a single building. Its scale is thus disguised, creating the perception of something that is united and diverse at the same time, depending on whether you’re indoors or out. Visitors are given an exhibition centre, an auditorium, an archive and the municipal library, in a work lit by natural light throughout. In fact light is one of the greatest attributes of this space. Both in the brightness of the façade and in the whiteness of the interior walls there is a solar serenity matching its context, a place where you still feel an ancient Mediterranean vibe.

gnration
From the very outset the name gives you some clues. This is because the building was, in fact, a GNR (National Republican Guard) barracks in Braga, but is now occupied by new tenants, more inclined to the generation of ideas and artistic creations. The changes are striking through various elements, such as the three courtyards baptised with the names of constellations: Dog, Hunter and Bear. They are spaces that function not only as points of artistic fruition, but also as aesthetic icons, and have become the brand image of gnration. Just try looking for gnration images on the Internet: you will most certainly find photographs of these courtyards. On the whole, however, this is a multifaceted place, a mix of concert hall, art gallery, digital laboratory and business incubator, not forgetting the Pausa, a café and bookshop that has already become a leisure time habit of the city. The project was designed by the Carvalho Araújo studio.

CIAJG - José de Guimarães International Arts Centre
This is one of the icons of the European Capital of Culture Guimarães 2012. It came about in the precinct of the old municipal market and has already made its mark in the city, while also helping to regenerate a previously neglected area. The brass and chromed glass façade imposes itself on the square that serves as its home, adding to the dynamism created by the overlapping of the building’s volumes, positioned to share the limelight with remaining elements of the old market. Inside, there is the collection from Guimarães artist José de Guimarães, composed of African, pre-Columbian and Chinese art pieces, as well as the artist’s own creations. There are also temporary exhibitions of contemporary art, managed by curator Nuno Faria. This exhibition nature is joined by the Platform of Arts and Creativity, with creative laboratories and workshops to support creation. The project is by the firm Pitágoras Arquitectos.

Sculpture Museum of Santo Tirso
It is highly unusual to find two Pritzker Prize winning architects working on the same project, but this is precisely what happened with the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture of Santo Tirso, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura. In fact, this is only the headquarters of the museum, seeing as it is composed of dozens of outdoor sculptures, in an initiative begun in 1990. It was an idea from local sculptor Alberto Carneiro, which the city promptly adopted, having held ten symposiums with artists from around the world, which brought about the sculptures now distributed throughout the city. This list includes names such as Rafel Canogar, Kishida Katsuji, Rui Chafes and Fernanda Fragateiro, among many others. A headquarters was still lacking for this museum. This gap was filled in 2016, following the renovation of the Abade Pedrosa Museum by the same architects. This brought about a dialogue between old and new, with the buildings interconnected in their structures and programmes, with the new body housing an exhibition hall, a documentation centre, a shop and a cafeteria.

Real Vinícola
It occupies an entire block and takes advantage of the old facilities of the Real Companhia Vinícola, a wine company that occupied this space in 1897. It was one of the first works in an ambitious urban plan, created at that time by the architect Licínio Guimarães, still visible today in the geometric order of this area in ​​Matosinhos. However, the building had no definite function since the 1930s, when the company went bankrupt. The situation was only resolved in 2015, when architect Guilherme Machado Vaz undertook preservation and adaptation project on this valuable piece of heritage, on behalf of the Matosinhos municipal council. Today, it is the headquarters of the Casa da Arquitectura and of Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra, two of the most important cultural institutions in the city, and both causing a stir. But there is still space for other projects, such as shops, a restaurant and an events area. There is also its huge central courtyard, featuring sculptures created by artist José Pedro Croft for the Venice Biennale 2017.