São Jorge Castle Archeological Site

This access to Praça Nova do Castelo in the former Moorish Wall is associated with the legend of the knight who, during the siege of Lisbon, gave his life to prevent the wooden gate from closing, with his body, guaranteeing the entry of the Portuguese army. Traces of three significant periods in the history of Lisbon are preserved here: housing structures from the 7th century BC; 11th-century Islamic houses, and Paço dos Condes de Santiago, destroyed by the 1755 earthquake. The architectural intervention delimits the archaeological site with a corten steel membrane that reconstructs the perimeter of the Islamic buildings, in an abstract scenography. The protection of what remains of the structures and respective frescoes is also an opportunity to reproduce their volume, with white walls recreating the domestic space of two dwellings. In 2010 this was distinguished with the Piranesi Prix de Rome.