Alvaro Siza

Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza (1992 Pritzker Prize) is one of the most influential architects of the last five decades. His architecture is strongly rooted in the Modern Movement, but incorporates a subjective approach to concept and design, seeking alternative interpretations of Modernism. The Serralves Museum in Porto (Portugal), one of his major works, was the second in a series the architect started with the Galician Center for Contemporary Art and was followed by projects in Italy, Brazil, and Belgium. Unlike much recent museum architecture and the 'white box' syndrome, Siza's exhibition spaces are disarmingly intimate on every level. There is an unmediated recognition of the essence of art as individuation. The balance between individuation and collective experience, or the quality of architecture in counterbalance to the atmosphere of intangible light that Siza creates with its gradations and textures, is perishable and enigmatic. In Serralves, as in other museum buildings designed by Siza, the ordering of light, movement, and space has the quasi autonomy of the creatural.