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This book is a limited edition, published in 170 numbered copies. / 170

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THROUGH THE EYES OF SIZA VIEIRA Special Edition 170 years 3

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CONTENTS I. THE ARCHITECT AND THE FACTORY 9 II. SIZA’S PROJECTS 29 Santa Maria Church 30 Portugal Pavilion 38 Baixa-Chiado Metro Station 54 Centre of Portugal Pavilion 60 Terraços de Bragança Housing Complex 66 São Bento Metro Station 74 Holy Trinity Basílica 80 The Inside Pool at Pedras Salgadas 88 The Vidago Palace Club House Pool 92 Amore Pacific Research and Design Centre 98 Jeju House 106 Quinta de Santo Ovídio Pool 114 Reception House Taifong Golf Course 118 Chapel of Bones 126 Capela do Monte Chapel 130 III. VIÚVA LAMEGO - THE FACTORY 137 7

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I. THE ARCHITECT AND THE FACTORY This is an homage, a tribute to our heritage. It is our duty to make sure that the legacy we are receiving has been documented for posterity, to be certain that the generations that come after us have access to our past, present and future. To what is happening right now at Viúva Lamego, the path we took to get here and what we are working towards. It is also our duty to dignify and elevate the teams of talented people who make this possible. Honouring one of the many collaborations that have been the most important part of Viúva Lamego’s history of landmarks, this book brings us closer to the identity of the factory and its story through the words and works of renowned portuguese architect and long time Viúva Lamego ambassador, Álvaro Siza Vieira. Viúva Lamego’s relationship with Siza is emblematic, a source of great pride to our factory and the most relevant contribution we made to Architecture. The work of this great architect and artist deserves our respect and tribute. From the use of colour, to understanding the nuances of different shades working in different ways, to shaping the square tradition into 170 different contours - Siza has done it all, leaving the distinct quality of his line on the glazed history of the Viúva Lamego tile, as if he drew upon that clay himself. This is a look at the relationship he has with the factory and his work using their tile. Our hope is that someone will come and challenge us to take our work further, to bend the shapes of this clay square and find yet another texture in a shade of white. Although we have been around for 170 years, we are still defining who we are through the challenges we accept and overcome with distinction. It is a very special and delicate thing, the soul and quality of handmade craftsmanship combined with a structure that provides on an industrial scale. But that is who we have become and what we expect to keep developing with you. Viúva Lamego 9

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THE ARCHITECT, WORD/K FOR WORD/K The relationship between Álvaro Siza Vieira and Viúva Lamego began out of curiosity and experimentation. As an architect, Siza had worked with tile more than a few times. There are two ways in which he could use it: as a material for decorative and building purposes or as a support for murals. The second use came later on in his career and was the driving force that guided him towards Viúva Lamego: painted tile murals. “I had great teachers and enablers. From the artists who worked with Viúva Lamego (Pomar, Cargaleiro, who was frequently there), the contacts I had at the factory and the artisans who worked there… I would often visit the factory and talk things out with them. They would show me what was possible. I am a poor student of great masters - but because the masters are, indeed, great, I am able to achieve something.” Álvaro Siza 11

Siza tried by himself. Having always liked the artform, one day he decided that he would create figures and images on tiles. He couldn’t. Picking up a blank tile before it was glazed, his paintbrush would grace the surface and all of the paint would be absorbed. The speed at which he worked was immaterial - nothing stuck. Looking to understand how other great artists who worked with ceramics were successful, he reached out to Júlio Pomar, a greatly respected Portuguese modernist visual artist. “Nothing is sticking to the tile, even before it is glazed.” Pomar laughed and explained that what he had to do was leave it to the experts. 12

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“TO EXPERIMENT” “Draw something on paper and the experts at the Viúva Lamego Factory will translate it and turn it into a tile mural.” was what Júlio Pomar told Siza. Word had it that these artists and artisans would take a drawing and, with prodigal patience and skill, pass the lines from paper to pre-cooked clay with pointillism using a small pin, and then unite the dots. Their training and confidence allowed them to paint over these points - they made the result look like something spontaneously painted. The architect tried it. The drawing was blown up, produced, worked into a grid of the size he needed. He went to see the initial result of the first experiment. On an elevated platform, far enough to see the whole picture, Siza Vieira was so mesmerised with what he saw that he almost fell off the platform. The lines were so perfect that he felt as if it had been drawn on paper. 14

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“In Porto, there are entire streets of 18th and 19th century buildings covered in tiles. They have a very special element to them - the fact that they are always changing. When you come up the street looking at the Clerigos Church at a time when the sun is setting, you see one thing. When you walk up in the morning, it is something else entirely. The material has a life of its own.” Álvaro Siza 16

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Bringing back the tile was not the work of one isolated man - but some may argue that in the Portuguese landscape, one did have a bigger role to play. Álvaro Siza followed suit with his curiosity, which had been kickstarted by the modernist brazilian movement and its patron, Le Corbusier. Moving beyond indigo strokes on a white surface, there was so much to explore, so much possibility with colour and the reinterpretation of classical uses - and so much practical reasons to use it. “Heritage and legacy are pervasive in everything. Nothing is really invented. Everything that is available can relate to the past. Even when something of great novelty and freshness comes into the picture, it is derivative of something that existed before.” Álvaro Siza 19

A DARK LINE OVER WHITE TILE, FROM ONE HAND TO ANOTHER “The expression of my work is also a product of my limitations - I can’t paint directly on the tile, I don’t have an active role in the painting, which results in my creating of linear drawings. That expression is the result of my shortcomings.” Álvaro Siza Siza’s connection to figurative tile murals, where Víúva Lamego’s expert hands translated his line from paper to clay, has been a part of architectural projects of his own. Even though he used colour, its reflexes and the different shapes of tile in various projects, the fidelity achieved by Víúva Lamego in manually tranposing Siza’s lines might be the most valued factor by the architect, and the most challenging to the factory. In this faithful reprodution Álvaro Siza understood that it would be possible to perpetuate his sketches and drawings in surfaces with various dimensions. 20

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The wisdom in taking time to get to just the right hue of colour makes this a factory of industrial production and delicate, time- tested techniques. Because the beauty in their product is just how specific and unique they can become and there is no other way to arrive at such flavour. 22

“I usually propose to work with Viúva Lamego, because I want that special flavour of having a handcrafted, artisanal tile. It has a different vibration from industrially produced tiles.” Álvaro Siza 23

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“Viúva Lamego’s tiles have an imperfection that contrasts with the invariability of an industrial product. This imperfection gives each tile different reflections and effects. It gives them a different flavour. They may look the same to someone who is not in the know or paying attention - but it is substantially different.” Álvaro Siza 26

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28 Photography by Fernando Guerra

II. SIZA´S PROJECTS The story of the relationship between Álvaro Siza Vieira and Viúva Lamego is better told through the work they have accomplished together, mural by mural, piece by piece, tile by tile. For simple coating purposes or to enrich projects with hand-drawn murals, plays on colour or form and the reflection of light, most times, there is more than one reason for using tile in a project - although one of these results may be more enhanced than others. 29

IGREJA DE SANTA MARIA SANTA MARIA CHURCH Marco de Canaveses, Portugal 1996 “That’s when I thought about tile which, when artisanally produced, maintains a slightly irregular surface; that allows for particular reflections of light, while the joints, which are left empty, manifest a sensitive presence.” Álvaro Siza Photography by Fernando Guerra 30

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“The light. There are many entries of light in the church. Tall windows on the north side of the Church, low windows on the south side. The light is like a line through the length of the church toward the altar. There is a lot of range in that light. I wanted tile that would react to the entry of light in a non-fixed, non-static or equal way, I wanted tile that would return the light’s range and amplify it.” Álvaro Siza 32

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In a project with strategic luminosity, through the wide horizontal window and the ten meter high door, Álvaro Siza chooses white tile so than it could react in different ways to the light that entered. Contrary to the traditional tile placement process on surfaces, Siza projects the application of this jointless coating between each tile, highlighting more clearly each of the applied pieces and bringing new understandings and possibilities to this material. “On some of the inside walls, we used tile. We needed a resistant baseboard which would make the cleaning and upkeep problems evident. I had first thought of a wooden baseboard. But that choice quickly felt like an unhappy one, seeing as it would cancel out the impact of the verticality of the wall and especially because the light reflection would be inappropriate. That’s when I thought about tile which, when artisanally produced, maintains a slightly irregular surface; that allows for particular reflections of light, while the joints, which are left empty, manifest a sensitive presence.” Álvaro Siza 35

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Simplicity and minimalism are the key words to describe this project. The first time Siza used tile as a surface for mural drawing was within the context of this church, specifically an illustration of Christ’s baptism for the baptistry. The architect took care to draw the figures considering the perspective they would be seen from, so that the beholder would not see them deformed when observing from the bottom up. The reflection of tile can also be connected to the way the water from the baptismal font reflects light. 37

PAVILHÃO DE PORTUGAL PORTUGAL PAVILION Parque das Nações, Lisboa, Portugal, with Eduardo Souto de Moura 1998 “Choosing a colour from a catalogue is terrible, because the shade presented never matches reality. Looking at an isolated piece of tile before the whole work is finished is never close to what the final result will be. It is a game of Russian Roulette.” Álvaro Siza Photography by Fernando Guerra 38

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Built as the welcoming pavIlion to represent Portugal in the Expo ‘98 Festival, the Portugal Pavilion was made to embody the national heritage and communicate with its surroundings. The chosen colours are an interpretation of the portuguese flag, connecting it with the nearby river and the rest of the landscape. In this project, the monochromatic green assumes the reflective element with an added historical and national dimension. This material, besides its funcional and aesthetic characteristics, has the ability to reflect in the Pavilion all the surrounding elements, especially the Tagus River. Emphasizing the International Exposition: “The Oceans: An Inheritance for the Future”, that intended to commemorate the heritage of Portuguese discoveries, Siza was able to praise it in the builing itself. The architect collaborated with Manuel Cargaleiro during the painting process, which allowed for imperfect and imprecise tonalities of red and green on the tiles. The results are varied and textured reflections of colour. 43

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The deck is made up of a 0.20 meters thick reinforced concrete sheet suspended by steel cables from two reinforced concrete gantries. It has a size of 65 x 58 meters and a minimum height of 10 meters in an area of a​​ pproximately 70 x 90 meters occupied by the building. In the same building, the monumentality and delicacy that metaphorically characterise Viúva Lamego factory can be observed: the delicacy of the traditional process present in each tile, and the monumentality represented through the large scale and industrial dimension. 46

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“The choice of colour and material in the inner wall of the Cerimonial Square was not simple. I have been very interested in tile for a while now, it is connected with my interest in drawing and so I thought that it would be a material to use for this case. Concerning the colour, I might be slightly sensitive to criticism which says I always work with white. I might have decided to bet on colour this time as a reaction to that. This structure was not suited for a white or creme tonality, it was better to bet on another colour, a stronger colour, and it ended up being a dark red or bordeaux colour, the colour of wine.” Álvaro Siza 49

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