Maritime Traffic Control Tower in Algés

Due to its function and geographic location, this building has an exceptional presence in the relationship between Lisbon and the Tejo. With the role of controlling a vast maritime and riverine area, this architectonic structure looked for its symbolic meaning, just like many other river front constructions did. Therefore, it attempts to ritualize the city’s entrance through the river, taking a dominant vertical position that suggests control. In contrast, the tower allows for a triumph over the horizontal dimension of the water to which it is intimately connected, the area of the maritime activity that the infrastructure controls. In a combination between the concepts of horizontality and movement, the project undertakes the wish to convey an image of a building that slides on its structure, resulting in the diagonal movement of the construction. A building that reinterprets the classic references and fades itself in the connection between sea and sky — from the solidity of stone, growing through its copper coating and ending in the transparency and lightness of glass.