Arade Congress Centre, Parchal, Algarve, Portugal
2007
Miguel Arruda Arquitectos



Photography : Luis Pavão and Nuno Campos



The Arade pavilion, with some metrical differences, sought to retain the memory of the previous building (Marques Neves canning factory), as well as the old brick chimney stack which constitutes its unique local icon. We also kept the couple of storks which temporarily abandoned the site during the initial construction phase, only to return shortly afterwards to rebuild their nest.



The complexity and contradiction prefaced by Robert Venturi surrounding the solid, liquid and gaseous elements were the origin of the entire conceptual process.



The dichotomy between the opaque and the non opaque, assuming three categories: transparency, translucence and evanescence, duly instrumentalised by either natural or artificial light, constituted the fundamental instruments for this concept’s conception.



From these three categories mentioned above, the sense of evanescence constituted one of the primordial goals of this project, to which all efforts converged in the sense of programming and realising a set of strategies underlying to the edification of this construction.



In the evanescence sense we focused their motivations to make architecture transcend beyond the physical limits imposed by the form, enabling decisions taken on a physical plan to embody a poetic element in the emotional plane.



Hence, the transparency theory that internally and externally exists during the day, this building seeks to pay tribute to the light of the Algarve. At night the building transforms itself, assuming a new formal and pictorial reality, imposing itself chromatically to the nearby and distant urban surroundings, exploring the dichotomous relationship between day and night in that which it can intentionally mean for the life of buildings)



The Arade River, structurally desirable element of the cultural and economic politics of this region, had to be duly contemplated in this building’s surroundings. Thus, an altimetric effort was made so that it could be seen from some of its floors and the presence of water, the liquid element which surrounds it, constitutes also the evocation of the river.



Arade Congress Centre images / text from Miguel Arruda Arquitectos 211008



Portugal Buildings



Arade Congress Centre
Location: Parchal, Algarve, Portugal
Date: project started 1999
Construction: 2004 - dec 2007

Miguel Arruda Arquitectos Ass. Lda.
Tel: +351 213021858 Fax: +351 213021863 www.miguelarruda.com





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