PTEN
Trienal de 
Locations: Museu Colecção Berardo, Fundação EDP - Museu da Electricidade, MNAC – Museu do Chiado, Centro Cultural de Cascais
With such a prolific career, it's hard to imagine that Siza almost escaped the profession. As a young man, he wanted to be a sculptor, but his father's insistence and his fascination with the Catalan Antoni Gaudí led him to the Architecture School in Oporto from 1949 to 1955. With the leitmotif ‘The project is in the place’, he sought to reference what is particular about each territory, especially along the northern Portuguese coast, keeping a sharp eye on the typical ways of building and the vernacular spatial logics, without revisionism or stylistic preconceptions.
His first designs garnered great attention – the Boa Nova Tea House (1963) and the Marés Swimming Pools in Leça da Palmeira (1966) were acclaimed for the way they blend into the landscape. His housing projects throughout the country and abroad are also frequently visited as case studies.
In the 1960s, he became a professor, lecturing at universities in Switzerland, the United States and Colombia, alongside invitations to lecture around the world.
Among his numerous awards are the Alvar Aalto Foundation Medal (1988), the Pritzker Prize in 1992 and the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. At the time, the Pritzker Prize jury noted that “four decades of patient and innovative creation have provided unique and reliable architectural statements, while at the same time surprising the discipline with their freshness.”
Despite his worldwide recognition, Siza maintained a humanised approach focused on the elements of space, stating that “each design is a rigorous attempt to capture a concrete moment of a transitory image in all its nuances. The extent to which this transitory quality is captured is reflected in the designs: the more precise they are, the more vulnerable.”
The archive of his body of work – which ranges from the landmark reconstruction of Lisbon’s Chiado neighbourhood to public swimming pools,mass housing developments and museums, banks, office blocks, and private foundations – is part of several collections, including that of the CCA, one of the most reputable. With unparalleled dedication to his profession, he recently signed off on the extension of the Serralves Museum, which he had originally designed back in 1991.
As the magazine Casabella wrote in July 1986, about Siza’s continuous experimentation: "Precisely for this reason, his architecture can communicate to us an extraordinary sense of freedom and freshness; in it, one clearly reads the unfolding of an authentic design adventure. In accepting the risk of such adventure, Álvaro Siza has even been able to bring to the surface, in his architecture, what one feared was in danger of extinction: the heroic spirit of modern architecture."
From 1988 onwards, iron – almost always painted matt black – became his material of choice, with a preference for integrating his sculptures directly into nature or into very specific architectural spaces. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including the 2013 Venice Biennale, Museum Folkwang Essen, Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, Kunsthallen Nikolaj (Copenhagen), Fondazione Volume! (Rome), and the Eva Klabin Foundation (Rio de Janeiro).
The Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Achievement Award honours a working studio or individual whose work and ideas have influenced and continue to have a profound impact on contemporary architectural practice and thinking. We believe in consistency and excellence, in relevant work and its distinction. The scope of this award has included nominators and jury members from five continents, ensuring a plurality of voices that has given it solid credibility.
The awardees from 2007 to 2022 represent a territorial coverage of three continents, affirming architecture’s worldwide plurality through a comprehensive perspective both of visions and diversity of geographies. Recipients of the Achievement Award receive an original work of art created by a renowned Portuguese artist, contributing to the promotion of Portuguese artistic production.