Casa Das Historias

Blueprint Magazine - Architecture & Design 2010.03.22.
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Souto de Moura’s Storyhouse for Paula Rego Search This Site... GO

October 20, 2009 by: Vicky Richardson
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The twin chimneys of the Casa das Historias are inspired by chimneys at Sintra Palace and made from More updates...
concrete that is coloured to reflect local terracotta, and shuttered with planks of timber in a herringbone
pattern. All photography by Leonardo Finotti: www.leonardofinotti.com EVENTS
The Casa das Historias Paula Rego seems to be that rare project which has brought together an enlightened client, a
brilliant architect and powerful subject matter. At first the combination of architect Eduardo Souto de Moura and the
<< Mar 2010 >>
figurative artist Paula Rego seems unlikely: an architect known for his interest in minimalism and an artist world- M T W T F S S
reknowned for her soulful expression and love of folk-tales. Yet the pairing makes clear that both share a sensitivity for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
universal values of proportion, colour and composition, even if it’s impossible to make direct parallels between their
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
work.
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Elevations show the building surrounded by mature trees. The site was chosen so that as many of the Pruned
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The building is a collection of forms that reflect the internal spaces of the museum. Unified by a single material – Spiked
coloured concrete – it sits comfortably within an oasis of lush grass and mature Eucalyptus trees, as if it were a farm or Strange Harvest
ranch. An ancient wall of rough-cast render protects the site, once La Parada, a garden where aristocrats and royalty
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The gateway, an opening in a 100-year-old rough-cast render wall

Close to the fortress of Cascais, La Parada was a place for entertainment for the very rich, who would come to Cascaisto
escape the heat and dust of Lisbon, only about 20 minutes away by train. Close to the historic palace of Sintra and the
popular seaside town Estoril, Cascais municipality is small but includes some of the most important historic architecture
of the region. In the 19th century, grand villas sprung up along the coastline. Fine houses continued to be built until the
1940s and 1950s. Even today some of Portugal’s richest families inhabit in the area, and a casino, catering for their
amusement, creates a local tax revenue of about six million euros.
A sheltered courtyard between the two chimneys is protected on three sides
In the 1930s Paula Rego grew up here and attended the English-speaking school St Julian’s. She spent her teenage years
in Estoril, until, with the encouragement of her father, who wanted to keep her away from the dictatorship of Salazar, at
the age of 17 she came to London to study at the Slade School of Art. In 2005 representatives of Cascais contacted her to
ask if she would consider helping to establish a museum dedicated to her work. Her profile in Portugal has grown in
recent years, despite the fact that since the Sixties her permanent home has been London where she married the critic
andartist Victor Willing. An exhibition of her work at the Serralves museum in Porto in 2004 attracted more visitors
than any other.
The beautifully composed ground plan shows the

arrangement of galleries around a central, temporary
exhibition space
In 2002 the newly elected mayor of Cascais, António d’Orey Capucho, had proposed a strategy to use tax collected from
the casino and from the area’s wealthy residents to invest in a 12-year development strategy to create a ‘contemporary
architectural heritage’ that would provide a new impetus for tourists to visit Cascais. The Casa das Historias would
become a key component of the strategy, and one of the only entirely new buildings. Cascais participated in the Lisbon
Architecture Triennale in 2007 and showed 38 high-quality projects, including refurbishments; new public facilities such
as schools and libraries; cultural buildings such as the Casa das Historias; the SantaMarta lighthouse museum, and the
competition entries for an information centre in the town square.
A small gallery on the left, cuts the corner off the north-west of the building. The base of Bluestone marble
juts out to emphasise that the concrete is resting on top of it
This ambitious programme is scheduled to run for another four years, and is being implemented by the council’s
impressive head of culture, Ana Clara Justino, a former secondary school teacher, who also acted as the client for the
Casa das Historias. ‘Until recently we didn’t have anything of international quality or to attract tourism,’ says Justino,
‘but whatever we build has to be small scale: we’re not trying to rival Bilbao.’
The temporary space, a large high-ceilinged gallery, will

be used for two exhibitions a year, beginning with
Marlborough Fine Arts’ collection of Rego’s work
Most of the projects have been refurbishments, but even these have been opportunities to make strong statements about
contemporary Portuguese architecture. The superb SantaMarta Lighthouse museum by AiresMateus is one such example.
A historic lighthouse was restored and a new building carefully added in the form of a series of white pavilions, shaped
like castellations. Each houses parts of the new programme: shop, washrooms and cafe. Completed in 2007, the museum
is a work of great subtlety and made an important statement about Cascais’s ambition to create a new distinctive
architectural character.
Paula Rego’s 1995 pastel drawing on paper, Love, shows her regular model Lila Nunes wearing Rego’s
mother’s wedding dress
Although in most cases the starting point for the new work has been an existing structure, or in the case of the Casa das
Historias, vernacular forms, the influenceof the northern Porto School of Architecture has been important. According to
Justino, ‘the northern architects give us the response to the site that we want for a series of small, human-scale projects’.
Carlos Bessa, architect and assistant to Justino at the Department of Culture, studied in Porto and has been a strong
advocate for the Porto school, along with Cascais’s head of planning Diogo Capucho, an architect (and son of the Mayor).
Next year, the council will pass over control of the Casa das Historias to a charitable foundation made up of key
representatives including Paula Rego’s daughter, Carolina Willing, and a representative of Marlborough Fine Art gallery,
which Rego joined in 1989.
An intimate gallery juts out at the corner, providing a place for rest and views of the garden. In the large
gallery adjacent, Rego’s acrylic painting The Vivian Girls in Tunisia, 1984, can just be seen
Rego is a heroic figure in Portugal. She is the country’s best-known artist, but she also has a public profile after speaking
out about politics and in particular the role of women in Portuguese society. In 1997, when the country had a national
referendum on the subject of abortion rights, she exhibited a powerful series of paintings of women undergoing
abortions, Untitled, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. She was highly critical of the fact that many
people chose not to vote, which meant that the practise continued to be illegal.
Her work, though produced from a studio in Kentish Town, is infused with Portuguese character: women with strong
features, black hair and full skirts, and the colours of the Portuguese architecture and landscape. Since 1988 her regular
model has been a compatriot, Lila Nunes, who nursed her husband in the final years of his life.
The bookshop, with wall shelves prior to stock being

arranged
Rego has always insisted that the most important aspect of her work is its narrative content.Most of her paintings and
drawings tell stories based on her own memories, or other stories or situations that often express outrage about the
human condition, and particularly that of women. She is inspired by illustrators and filmmakers (earlyWalt Disney and
Luis Buñuel) rather than by fine artists.
At the Casa das Historias (literally House of Stories), the galleries tell the story of Rego’s own life and work, beginning
with her early collages, her ‘drawn’ paintings on large canvases, the Opera series, and the etchings of Portuguese and
English fairy tales. The story unfolds as you walk from room to room. There are moments of intimacy, such as at the
north-west corner of the building where a small chamber juts out from a large gallery to provide an intimate setting for a
series of drawings, and to provide a domestic setting, a place to rest and to enjoy views out to the garden. Apart from
that instance, the interior of the building seems disconnected from its setting.
Inside the chimneys are void spaces with skylights at the top
Inside, the architecture is muted and restrained, or as Justino puts it, ‘the building ceases to exist’. The colour and
materials remain the same throughout: chalky grey walls that seem to echo the chalkiness of Rego’s own pastel
drawings; and a dark grey Bluestone marble, full of imperfectionsand fossils, which is quarried locally in Cascais. Rego
was involved in decisions about all these materials: Souto deMoura Architects would present samples and colours for
discussion.
The choice of architect was made by Rego. She’d been impressed by the London Serpentine pavilion of 2005 designed by
Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto deMoura, and Souto deMoura’s Braga stadium (2000): ‘I heard he had done a football
stadium in a cave and thought that he was particularly imaginative’.
The entrance hall looking along the path that leads away diagonally
Hence Casa das Historias is one of the few architectural projects in Cascais that resulted from a direct commission rather
than from a competition.
Rego’s work is so strong – at times monstrous – that her modest, charming persona comes as something of a surprise. A
few days before the grand opening of the Casa das Historias, she seemed nervous, telling me that the most important
thing is not for people to see her work, but to ‘bring attention and energy to folk tales and story-telling’. Rego describes
herself as a ‘drawer’, rather than an artist, and drawing is a thread that runs through the permanent and temporary
exhibitions (the latter is taken from the Marlborough Fine Art’s collection and will be on display until 2010). The role of
lines, whether in the large pastel works (where the lines are never smudged), or in etchings and lithographs, is central to
Rego’s work.
The renovation of the 19th century Santa Marta

Lighthouse and the addition of a small museum by Aires
Mateus architects, is part of Cascais municipality’s 12-
year development programme
The museum’s permanent collection is made up of 257 etchings and 278 drawings, many of which have never been seen
before, that Rego has donated to the foundation. She has also loaned 52 paintings, many from the 1980s (for example
the Operas series); and certain works from the 1960s and 1990s. Willing, apart from being husband and father to her
three children, was a hugely important figure in the development of her work, and he is represented in the collection
with 15 oil paintings, which will be exhibited in a retrospective of his career fromMarch 2010.
Opened in 2007, the museum sits on the battery of a coastal fort, which rises out of the Aires Mateus
Souto deMoura’s abstract architecture is suprisingly sympathetic to her approach. The mono-material and coloured
facades are a backdrop for a number of mature trees, whose irregular trunks and branches appear on the walls in
silhouette as if they were hand-drawn lines. The terracotta colour is very much part of the area, occurring on terracotta
roof tiles and plant pots and in the warm-toned render of neighbouring villas.
According to Sergio Koch, project architect, the references in colour and form are a mix of local vernacular and early-
20th century houses. One very direct reference seems to be the twin chimneys of Sintra Palace, although these are
conical and grey. In fact, the forms are a mix of references, but very much evoke the coastal fortresses, lighthouses, and
agricultural silos of Cascais. To determine the precise colour, Souto deMoura experimented with several samples of
concrete, adjusting the dye until it was right. The construction was apparently simple, using shuttering made from
timber planks instead of large panels. Although the technique is not unusual, says Koch, ‘everything is studied to the
millimetre. Every joint length and height of timber.’ The result is reduced to the point of feeling primitive. Horizontally
shuttered concrete rests on a base of marble, and when the walls slope in to form two geometric forms, the shuttering
makes a herringbone pattern, like a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt. The colouring is not quite as precise: the rusty red is
satisfyingly uneven and painterly.
The original 19th-century buildings have been restored

and clad with subtlely
Inevitably, the twin turrets are the features of Souto deMoura’s building that will make their way on to tourist leaflets
and into magazines. These are the only interior spaces where the architecture is more important than what is inside,
housing a very well-researched bookshop and a bar/restaurant. The effect, looking up, is reminiscent of a James Turrell
Skyspace: a square of light sky above a void; or a large kitchen fireplace where the room and the hearth are the same.
An inhabited wall houses facilities such as a meeting room, shop and WCs. With a flat roof and white
render, they are distinguished from the original buildings of the lighthouse
The plan of Casa das Historias is a rational composition of rectangles grouped around the central exhibition space, the
largest gallery, and with the twin chimneys to the left side of the entrance hall.
According to Koch, the location of the building on the site was determined by the position of trees and by some derelict
tennis courts, which were the only unvegetated area.Most of the existing trees were retained and the entrance path cuts
diagonally across the site, from an opening in the wall, passing under a natural arch of Eucalyptuses. One beautiful
detail, which is evident in the floor plan, is the echo of the diagonal entrance path in the north-west corner where a
small gallery juts out into the garden.
The single-storey rendered pavilions have deep, angled reveals to the doors and windows, to provide
shade and also reflect the shape of the fortresses’ battlements
Creating a place and a building for a specific body of work is not something an architect is often asked to do. The
majority of newly built art museums are for mixed collections, or indeterminate temporary exhibitions. Casa das
Historias, therefore, raises the possibility of how and whether architecture should seek to reflect the character of the
work within it, or alternatively act as a foil against it. The combination of Rego and Souto deMoura is a good balance: the
output of both has exuberance, powerful forms and tells its own stories. Yet the two artists use entirely specific and
independent means of expression. The Casa das Historias is a magical house for stories in more ways than one, and all
are worth exploring.
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Blueprint Magazine - Architecture & Design 2010.03.22.

Souto de Moura’s Storyhouse for Paula Rego Search This Site... GO

Save John Hejduk’s

The gateway, an opening in a 100-year-old rough-cast render wall

A sheltered courtyard between the two chimneys is protected on three sides

The beautifully composed ground plan shows the

The temporary space, a large high-ceilinged gallery, will

The bookshop, with wall shelves prior to stock being

The renovation of the 19th century Santa Marta

The original 19th-century buildings have been restored

Filed under: Architecture

© Copyright 2010 World Market Intelligence.

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