Residential area of Malagueira in Évora

"Quinta da Malagueira is probably the last major project of social housing and simultaneously the last significant architectural contribution to urban planning, where architecture still plays a crucial role. The uniqueness of this project stems from the perfect combination of formal principles and political intentions. The project developed with extraordinary dynamism (after the Carnation Revolution in 1974), where the memories of ancient Roman architecture and the Spartan logic of modernist housing first met, and unfortunately for the last time. Through the example of the elevated aqueducts, one can observe how ordinary infrastructure can become a unique opportunity for creating a form that is stubbornly monumental yet anonymous."
The fifty-thousand-strong city of Évora is located in the interior of Portugal approximately one hundred and fifty kilometers east of Lisbon. The historic core, dominated by the ancient ruins of the Temple of Diana, is still firmly enclosed by massive walls, preserving a unique atmosphere of narrow streets and stone squares, thus justly earning its place on the UNESCO World Heritage list. On the western outskirts of Évora, a new neighborhood called Malagueira was built in the 1970s to 1990s, comprising more than 1,200 family houses. On an area of 27 hectares, one of the largest post-war social housing projects in Portugal was created. The project to expand Évora began in the 1960s, but it originally considered the construction of high-rise buildings. After the Carnation Revolution, not only did the political regime change, but the construction plan was also reassessed. At that time, a member of the provisional government and state secretary of the Ministry of Construction, Nuño Portas, invited the SAAL (Serviço Ambulatório de Apoio Local) program for social housing to Siza's studio, where Souto de Moura also worked at the time. Initially, the project was to be part of an integration program for the Roma minority, where social workers and sociologists were invited. However, after government approval, the project had to be significantly modified. The accompanying participation was abandoned, and only cooperative members gained the right to purchase. Due to excessive bureaucracy and lack of funds, the completion deadline kept getting postponed. Both the commercial and public aspects of the project, necessary for the good functioning of the sprawling housing complex, were neglected. The resulting simple and cheap construction is a consequence of the lack of funds. In Siza's studio, a number of layout schemes were developed based on the typology of traditional houses (Frampton sees a parallel with Loos's 1923 project for Villa Moissi on the Venetian Lido), where the living spaces are oriented towards internal courtyards. Despite their minimal dimensions, the houses possess the benefits of ancient villas with atriums and can refer to the Roman origins of the city, which was then called Liberalitas Iulia.
In contrast to the compact buildings in the historic core, the social housing of Quinta da Malagueira consists of two-story houses freely distributed in the landscape, allowing nature to penetrate into the central park through which a stream flows. The low-rise family houses are grouped into compact blocks that create narrow streets between them. These clusters, consisting of dozens to hundreds of units, are then oriented relative to each other (as the morphology allowed) and free landscapes run between the clusters in irregular shapes. The area is intersected by two main axes: a pedestrian north-south axis connecting the Santa Maria neighborhood with Nossa Senhora de Gloria and an east-west road nicknamed "Broadway" connecting the Malagueira neighborhood with the center of Évora.
One of the most prominent features of Siza's design is the "modern aqueducts" made of unplastered concrete blocks, which are interpretations of ancient engineering structures. Siza specifically refers to the remnants of the 16th-century Aqueduto da Água de Prata, which supplied water to the historic city. This is a very rational solution for resolving the distribution of electricity, water, telephone, gas, and television in the area. By placing them above ground, he avoided excavation work, but primarily considered lower maintenance costs or a more economical and faster later replacement of the distribution systems. Street lighting is also installed on the "viaducts," providing shaded colonnades with commercial spaces between the pylons, running along important thoroughfares and facilitating orientation in the area. Just as with historical aqueducts made of stone blocks, Siza left the concrete blocks here unplastered as well, which confused some residents, who long considered the construction unfinished.
Of the planned 1,200 housing units, 1,100 had been built by July 1997. An overwhelming majority was financed cooperatively, and only five percent (55 units) are privately owned. Construction work is still ongoing, focusing primarily on improving the central park and adding public functions for which there were originally no funds. Currently, the cooperatives "Giralda" and "Boa Vontade" are responsible for completing the remaining hundred houses.