Gonçalo Byrne & Aires Mateus at Centre for Fine Arts

Saturday, 22 September 2007 19:41

Bruxelles, Belgium - The Void exhibition uses huge models and scores of plans and photographs to illustrate eleven projects by the architects Gonçalo Byrne and the Aires Mateus brothers. The result is a fascinating dialogue between the oeuvre of two leading Portuguese architectural practices.

Both Gonçalo Byrne and the Aires Mateus brothers have made Lisbon their base. And both firms can claim to have left their mark on contemporary Portuguese architecture in recent decades with dignified and very precise work that questions elementary principles of architecture and that relays on the time-honoured tradition of architecture as a discipline.

Neither Byrne nor Aires Mateus sees a building primarily as an object. ‘Negative space’ underlies the architecture of both building practices and is the common and recurring theme in their approach. They stress that it is the void that gives structure to architecture and the city. It is the empty spaces that make living in society possible and give it form.

Another common theme in the work of the two architectural practices is the dialogue with the context. Both Byrne and Aires Mateus put the emphasis on the relationship between the buildings and their urban environment. However, the context of the architecture is never an absolute point of departure; in fact, it is rather the opposite: the architects’ interventions give form and meaning to the surroundings.

Both firms question in a radical manner the tradition of architecture, but whereas the Aires Mateus brothers make free variations on the time-honoured, built archetypes, Byrne focuses on the architecture of the historic urbanity. Byrne’s area of activity is the compact European city. His architecture occupies the field of tension between the tenacity of the existing city and its capacity for transformation.

This year the Aires Mateus brothers’ Arts Centre in Sines (P) was short-listed for the prestigious European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, the Mies van der Rohe Award. Gonçalo Byrne has a Belgian connection, having built the provincial government building of Flemish Brabant in Leuven several years ago. The exhibition is organized to mark the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union.

Co-Production: BOZAR ARCHITECTURE, Camões Institute, A+ Belgian architectural review Support: Febelcem, Belgian Order of Architects

Visit Centre for Fine Arts - Rue Ravensteinstraat 23 - 1000 Bruxelles : www.bozar.be