Doctoral Thesis defense | Ana Luísa de Sá
'Arquitectura e Experiência. Museu de Serralves e Casa da Música. Siza, Koolhaas, e os outros

18th October 2023, 15h00, Sala Plana

© Francisco de Holanda, in De aetatibus mundi imagines, 1545-1573 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, DIB/14/26, FOL.89R

Jury

Carlos Manuel de Castro Cabral Machado (President)
Professor Associado da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

João de Lima Mendes Ribeiro
Professor Associado da Universidade de Coimbra

Francisco Manuel Gomes Costa Ferreira
Professor Auxiliar da Universidade do Minho

Marco Ginoulhiac
Professor Associado da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto

José Miguel Neto Viana Brás Rodrigues
Professor Catedrático da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto


Abstract:

The thesis hereby presented stems from a particular understanding: architecture, “cosa mentale,” deeply intellectual exercise and an externalization of thought as it is, like any art — art, therefore, in which it is, here, included —, all arts ‘mental things,’ no less resulting from, and leading to, embodiment (and new thought).
Circumscribing the boundaries of this thesis, through words about Siza, which are here borrowed from William J. R. Curtis, and weaving into them the second author attended in this thesis: “As with any architect of interest, it serves little purpose to slot Siza’s [and Koolhaas’s] work into historical or critical pigeonholes. It is better to look closely at the buildings themselves, to consider the problems they address, the intentions and ideas behind them, and the formal language and materials which they use to pursue their aims.”
Hence, a deliberate gaze directed at the Museu de Serralves and the Casa da Música is proposed, in three chapters, ‘Perceptions,’ ‘Intentions,’ ‘Appropriations,’ three ‘tempi,’ three times gazing each, ‘Museu’ and ‘Casa,’ prisms rotated in hand, dynamic observation of the refraction of light.
This thesis thus proposes a comparative study between Álvaro Siza and Rem Koolhaas, through the Museu de Serralves and the Casa da Música, expanding more granularly on the intricacies of architecture and (its) experience, stretching from the authors’ thoughts to that of others, the latter of which emerge from contemplating the oeuvre of the first — and what of this invisible and ineffable elusive, longitudinal and multifaceted ‘experience’ can one, through them, see and say (and speculate).

— Ana Luísa de Sá


Supervisors: José Miguel Rodrigues, Juhani Pallasmaa [Aalto University, Helsinki]