New Architecture tours in Portugal

Wednesday, 20 January 2010 17:23

New tours offering specialized series organized and led by architects are launching in Portugal by Episode Travel with Art. New tours include:

++ Contemporary Architecture in Lisbon-4-day tour in Lisbon
Contemporary Portuguese architecture offers examples of excellence, and the internationally renowned projects. A secret Lisbon is unveiled  to admire the fascinating architectural creativity of the city. See Lisbon’s historic neighborhoods and monuments and its blossoming post-industrial areas. the architecture is the key to reading between the urban lines and uncovering the hidden, magical aspects of this very different city. See Castelo S.Jorge, Praça do Comércio, the Chiado, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu do Chiado), and Aires Mateus’s notable ‘Reitoria’ at the Universidade Nova. visit to Carrilho da Graça’s new Escola Superior de Música,  Belém, and the the Vittorio Gregotti-designed Belém Cultural Centre, plus  the work of Gonçalo Byrne, the extraordinary Maritime Control Tower , Parque das Nações, a with the Oriente Station, by Santiago Calatrava, the Pavilion of Portugal, by A. Siza Vieira and the Oceanarium, by P. Chermayeff, quickly established themselves as new icons for an excited capital. The last day brings the C. Gulbenkian Foundation. The first large-scale modernist construction in Portugal, this is one of the very best, defining examples of 20th-century Portuguese architecture.

++ Contemporary Portuguese Architecture 7-day tour from Porto to Lisbon
A week of getting to know the leading examples of contemporary Portuguese architecture – from the north, and the unmissable works of the Porto School, to Lisbon, a city unique for the diversity of its architectural styles and its variety of sensitive urban redevelopment. Start with a walk through the historical centre of Porto. Here, we will be able to see for ourselves how the traditional and the contemporary  including: the restoration of the Praça dos Aliados; the S.Bento metro station by Siza Vieira and Souto Moura; Fernando Távora’s tourism centre A Casa dos 24; the Guindais funicular by Adalberto Dias; and the renovation of the riverside public space by Manuel Fernandes Sá. Then the  port wine warehouses of Gaia, and the work of architects in Cristina Guedes and Francisco Vieira de Campos’s bar/esplanade Ar do Rio.Rem Koolhaas’s Casa da Música and the Museu de Serralves by Siza Vieira,  visiting the Parque da Cidade and the Frente Marítima of Sidónio Pardal and Sola Morales.  Souto Moura’s seafront as far as Leça, where we find Siza Vieira’s 1966 Leça Swimming Pool, and  the Boa Nova Tea House (1958-63), built on the rocks above the sea and one of the first works of a very young Siza Vieira.  leave Porto to head for Viana do Castelo, to see the historical centre of the town, then off to to Braga and its Estádio de Futebol (2004) by Souto Moura – carved out of a granite hillside. And,  Marco de Canaveses where, in 1997, Siza Vieira began work on Santa Maria Church. Next day,  University of Aveiro. Begun in the 1980s as part of an urban plan proposed by Nuno Portas, – including Siza Vieira’s Library and Water Tank; the Ceramics and Glass Engineering Department of Alcino Soutinho; Adalberto Dias’s Students’ Residence; Souto Moura’s Geosciences Department; the Chancellor’s Building by Gonçalo Byrne and Manuel Aires Mateus; João Luís Carrilho de Graça’s Footbridge over São Pedro Creek; and the Canteen by Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus.See nearby city of Ílhavo, with the Maritime Museum and Library by the ARX studio. The fifth day begins, in Lisbon,  visit the Baixa, constructed after the 1755 earthquake and a remarkable example of urban planning on a grand scale in the name of rational, utopian social ideals. From here we climb the hill to Chiado, the site of a more recent example of urban regeneration, this time the work of Siza Vieira after a damaging fire in 1988. Here we also visit the National Museum of Contemporary Art (The Museu do Chiado),.and the Parque das Nações – 300 hectares of what was, until the 1998 Expo, decaying industrial land next to the river Tejo. And then  Belém – a centre for exhibitions and concerts – was built in the 1990s by Vittorio Gregotti and Manuel Salgado. After this, there’s still time – before we take lunch on an esplanade by the river –  and  the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, a pioneering 1960s example of the combination of space and utility by Rui Atouguia, Pedro Cid and Alberto Pessoa. Set in a superb garden, this museum of the decorative arts and modern art exhibition centre provides a fitting finish to our journey through the landscape of contemporary Portuguese architecture.