Author(s): Philip Jodidio

Architecture

Complex simplicity. This is the seminal book on Portugal's master architect. When Alvaro Siza, one of the great figures of contemporary architecture, won the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1992, the Jury citation described his shapes as "molded by light, [with] a deceptive simplicity about them; they are honest. They solve design problems directly...That simplicity, upon closer examination however, is revealed as great complexity. There is a subtle mastery underlying what appears to be natural creations." Born in Matosinhos, Portugal, in 1933, Siza created his own practice in Porto in 1954, and he has been a Professor of Construction at the University there since 1976. He received the European Community's Mies van der Rohe Prize in 1988 and the Praemium Imperiale in Japan in 1997, the Golden Lion at the 2002 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 2009 RIBA Gold Medal. He has built a large number of projects in Portugal, and worked on the restructuring of the Chiado area of Lisbon following the devastating 1988 fire. Siza designed both the Portuguese Pavilion for the 1998 Lisbon World's Fair and the 2005 Serpentine Pavilion in London in collaboration with Eduardo Souto de Moura.
He completed the Serralves Foundation (Porto, 1998), and the Museum for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2008. As for all previous TASCHEN architect's monographs, this book was realized in close collaboration with the architect and includes a full catalogue of his work to date.