Museu Serralves
Serralves Foundation announces the opening of the new Álvaro Siza Wing, the expansion of the Serralves Museum designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Álvaro Siza. The 45,000-square-foot expansion will be inaugurated by two major exhibitions: Improbable Anagrams, a permanent exhibition of a showcase of the Serralves Foundation’s collection spanning over 60 years, curated by Philippe Vergne, Museum Director, Ines Grosso, Chief Curator, Marta Almeida, Deputy Director, Ricardo Nicolau, Adjunct to the Director, Isabel Braga, Curator, Sonia Oliveira, Librarian and C.A.S.A., an acronym for “Coleção Álvaro Siza, Arquivo,” exhibiting works from the archives of Siza, curated by António Choupina. The exhibitions will be open to the public from February 24 to August 24.
Following 18 months of planning and construction, the Álvaro Siza Wing consists of three floors—one floor dedicated to the archives of Serralves, and two floors for exhibitions of contemporary art and architecture, adding almost 50% more exhibition space and 75% more reserve space to the already large Museum. As a result, the additional space will allow for new acquisitions, donations, and deposits of important collections and archives. The new building is connected to the original Museum via an elevated gallery and is also accessible from the first floor. Outdoors, the existing landscape has been preserved; the recently built Wing celebrates the expression of natural growth and global influence on Siza’s work.
The newly built Wing is located in Serralves Park, on the west side of the pre-existing building. The new building maintains a perfect relationship with the building complex and is constructed with reinforced concrete structural walls, plastered on the outside with cork insulation, and covered on the inside with double plasterboard. The exterior facades are plastered and painted with granite wainscoting around the entire building perimeter.
The inauguration of the Álvaro Siza Wing of Museu Serralves represents an important milestone in the history of the Serralves Foundation, while also paying tribute to one of the greatest names in architecture. The expansion underlines the historic relationship between Serralves and Siza. Over thirty years of collaborations have created a campus of Siza-designed buildings on the Serralves Estate; first with the establishment of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (1999), followed by the Manoel de Oliveira Cinema House (2019), then the construction of the Gardeners’ House (2021), and the restoration of the Serralves Art Déco Villa (2021). Mindfully designed in concert with the landscape of Serralves Park, the Álvaro Siza Wing branches out from the original Museum in a gentle expression of Siza’s fidelity to organic form. Fully integrated into the landscape, the Wing houses the Serralves Collection, the Portuguese State Contemporary Art Collection, the BPP Collection, and the collections on deposit (FLAD, Leal Rios, Mário Teixeira da Silva among others), which encompass nearly 5,000 works of art. The Serralves Collection also includes an important collection of artists' books and editions, comprising around 5,000 books. The building is also home to a large part of the important Siza archive.
The Álvaro Siza Wing expands opportunities to present Serralves’ permanent collection. The inaugural exhibition, Improbable Anagrams, works in harmony with the expansion’s design to free visitors from a predetermined circuit and encourages dialogue between artists’ works across generations and countries of origin. Based on the figurative anagram, Improbable Anagrams reflect this freedom of movement and experience in its conceptual curation. The curatorial intention was to develop an exhibition that contained multiple possibilities for understanding. Improbable Anagrams is a reflection on how the Serralves Collection is a touchstone for the artistic-literary movements of the 1960s and 70s. Improbable Anagrams endeavors to trigger the greatest number of synapses possible, with the selection of works being shown encompassing over 160 works by 80 artists. Artists include Lourdes Castro, Paula Rego, Cabrita, and Julião Sarmento, who speak to the seminal role the artistic movements of the 1960s, 70s, and 80’s had on contemporary Portuguese artists, as well as a series of recently acquired works by younger artists such as Martine Syms, Ana Santos, Juliana Huxtable, Arthur Jafa, Rui Chafes, Alexandre Estrela, Korakrit Arunanondchai, and Sonia Almeida which offer a fresh perspective. With the resonating voice of Luisa Cuhna and her newly commissioned and site-specific work for Ala Álvaro Siza, Improbable Anagrams offers a reading of the Serralves collection focusing on unexpected dialogues between artists and their works. It is an open narrative, a porous interpretation of the Collection which invites the visitors to find what they were not looking for.
C.A.S.A., “Coleção Álvaro Siza, Arquivo,” doubles as the title for the exhibition of Siza’s archives and as a reference to the “House” as the genesis of all architecture; the house (“casa” in Portuguese) is an essential unit of urban and rural fabrics as well as familial and communal life. C.A.S.A. utilizes the Serralves Foundation Archive to strengthen the presentation of Siza’s work as a unique narrative about the development of contemporary Portuguese architecture. With a floor dedicated to architecture, the Álvaro Siza Wing serves as a House for the Serralves Collection. C.A.S.A. explores various Houses: Culture, Knowledge, Faith, Idleness, Commerce, Family, People, Work, and the house to the artists, the Studio. The archives are bolstered by art which Siza creates in addition to his architecture practice. Together, the nine segments of the exhibition reference each decade of Siza’s life. In 2015, Álvaro Siza bequeathed a significant portion of his archive to Serralves, making this exhibition possible.
The mission of the Serralves Foundation is to increase awareness and knowledge amongst audiences from diverse backgrounds and ages, concerning contemporary art, architecture, cinema, environment, the landscape, and key societal issues. Created in 1989 as a private institution of public utility, the Foundation’s approach is based on its exceptional heritage assets, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Deco Villa, the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira (House of Cinema), and the Serralves Park, which were jointly classified as a National Monument in 2012.
