Portugal Pavilion at Expo '98

The original purpose of the Portuguese pavilion for the Expo '98 was both to provide space for a temporary exhibition and to serve as a welcoming platform for significant foreign visitors. Although it was unclear what would happen to the pavilion after the exhibition, it was suspected that it would house some state institutions or offices. This fact served as an argument for Siza's proposal for a palace with a monumental composition in the spirit of New Monumentality from 1943. Siza had already tested the architectural language of the Italian Tendenza in the design of the Teachers' Training Academy in Setúbal (1994). The Portuguese pavilion is based on the prototype Palazzo dei Ricevimenti 'E 42 by Giuseppe Terragni from 1938. This is evident, for example, in the shorter stone façades. Siza developed the rhythm of the Italian façades with the quality of tectonic modernism of Oscar Niemeyer, whose Cavanelas House from 1954 features a similar wide-span roof shaped like a chain link. In Siza's typical displacement, we witness how Terragni's palace façade supports the reinforced concrete roof shaped like a chain link with a span of 75 meters. Siza combined the contradictory motives of the western peristyle of the Roman Forum and the oriental nomadic canopy. The colossal scale of the roof of the Portuguese pavilion ultimately evokes the experience of the courtyard of Utzon's Kuwait Parliament (1982) and connects to Corbusier's Assembly Building in Chandigarh (1961) or Niemeyer's Palace of Dawn in Brasília (1959).

The World Exhibition Expo '98 in Lisbon was a great success. The Portuguese learned from their predecessors and planned new uses for most of the exhibition buildings. The attractive location of the exhibition area on the waterfront became a potential for future recreational use. Álvaro Siza was commissioned to design the National Pavilion, and he invited Souto de Moura to collaborate on the interiors. I was invited to design an exciting entrance canopy. The idea was to create a covered space in front of the pavilion that would serve as a square and gathering space. Not a ceremonial place for VIPs, but a space for the general public. At first, I looked for high-tech solutions using masts, cables, and light metal canopies, but soon abandoned this line of thought, as it did not suit the local climate and primarily the character of Siza's work. Instead, we opted for reinforced concrete and a simple suspended form. However, the roof suspension was not meant to be just any ordinary one; it needed to have a touch of light and remind one of a fabric shading the sun. Despite the fact that concrete is heavy and will ultimately make the roof weigh thousands of tons. If the form of the canopy denied its mass, can it then reveal lightness? I trimmed the roof at both ends to deny the connection of the reinforced concrete with the supports. The cables running through the roof carry its weight and span the void at the canopy's ends by the supports. The light effect denies the perception of the mass of the concrete, and the roof seems more textile in appearance. The roof above the square hovers like some spaceship - with an 80-meter span, the roof has a thickness of 15 centimeters. The impossible has become real - it is not a bird that flies, but the air enabled the encounter.