Association of Architects building

Commissioned by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Lisbon, the São Paulo Baths building was erected to take advantage of a medicinal waters source that existed in this area to the west of the city’s Praça do Comércio. Reflecting a late-Neo-Classic stylistic language, it is a building of great simplicity and rectangular plan organised around a central courtyard that was covered by an iron-framed skylight. The baths served the general public until 1975, when they were closed due to the levels of pollution found in the spring water. Now the headquarters of Portugal’s Association of Architects, the building was remodelled to a design that retains the central courtyard, chimneys, volumic composition and the building’s façade. Contrasting with the simple design idiom of the existing building, the new design’s exuberance in terms of light, form and colour adds surprising interior life to the new building.