To celebrate Alvaro Siza 93 anniversary, we are pleased to return to Casa Beires, a project we first published nine years ago as a Square Book. This year, the project begins a new chapter within our Long Books collection with the release of Long Book 45. A tribute to a timeless work and to an architect whose influence continues to transcend generations.
LB 45 ALVARO SIZA casa beires, is the forty-fifth title from the AMAG LONG BOOKS COLLECTION.
I visit the house I built more than 40 years ago.
I meet the same owner − 92 healthy years old.
There were no works or restorations, the doors and windows in wood mysteriously work as on the first day, the guillotines can still be moved with a finger, black-tin brass fittings fulfill their function.
The ocher colour of the plaster is the usual colour. Only time - this architect that does not tolerate mistakes - and the sun, filtered by the original curtains and the trees and shrubs that invade the garden, transform the spaces in continuous expansion and inscribe drawings in walls, ceilings and floors: light spots and shadows that move without haste.
The house does not look small. The covers hide or reveal the landscape, driven by the desire of whoever inhabits it.
Nothing depends on me.
Unrelated, I observe.
ÁLVARO SIZA VIEIRA
