Building in Rua Rodrigo da Fonseca

This distinguished early 20th-century residential building comprises flats sized over 330 m2 and 4 m high. Its main façade shows expressive stonework and art nouveau guardrails and gates. The interior contained a wooden structure and the decorative programme of that time – pine wood floors, stucco with decorative elements, and tiles on the staircase walls. But then, in the 21st century, after a first project whose rehabilitation works were about to conclude, a fire destroyed the building almost completely. The facades and the ground floor resisted, as did the structure of balconies and old wooden doors because they were stored elsewhere. The new project had to adapt to the circumstances, highlighting the pre-existing and already executed components and building new elements with contemporary materials and techniques. The result is a mixture of pragmatism and creativity, visible right from the entrance hall: the floor in original recovered stone and the walls covered by a panelling made from the pre-existing doors.