Subway Station, Porto, Portugal. Image (c) Fernando Guerra & Sergio Guerra.

A relatively unknown Portuguese architect, working mainly wthin his own country and almost entirely within the Continental sphere, has won architecture’s highest honor. Localism is back. Our question? Is the Pritzker Jury’s mission to promote regionalism the nostalgic ramblings of a group of luddites, or, alternatively, the brave promotion of meaning, value-systems, and thought (zing!) in architecture? Beautiful new images of the architect’s work, after the jump.

Subway Station, Porto, Portugal. Image (c) Fernando Guerra & Sergio Guerra.

Eduardo Souto de Moura’s selection is a win for those within the profession who criticize contemporary architecture as a series of nonsensical one-liners, built by designers intent only to catch the eye of bloggers or PR people with shallow visual punchlines. To dig deeper than that is a relatively radical procedure – one that, when attempted, is usually met with a derisive ”the medium is the message” response from the subject. But, with the selection of Souto de Moura, the Pritzker Prize jury advocates doing just that.

This Architectural Record article says as much. The Pritzker jury wrote, in their press release, that de Moura’s architecture is not “obvious, frivolous, or picturesque.” David Cohn sees this as a sign that the Pritzker team is interested in the promotion of “architects who explore the more intimate and poetic qualities of architecture.”

This should sound familiar to you, if you’ve ever taken a history course: this is the language promoted by the “third wave” Modernists who championed Critical Regionalism in the 70s and 80s, in reaction to the flailing appendages of modernism(s) past. So, the real question must be: is the Pritzker Jury’s mission the nostalgic ramblings of a group of luddites, or, alternatively, the brave promotion of meaning, value-systems, and thought  (zing!) in architecture?

You decide!

We just wanted to post some more pictures of de Moura’s unquestionably beautiful subway stations in Porto, Portugal – from architectural photogs Fernando Guerra & Sergio Guerra.

And here are some snaps of his Burgo Project in Boavista Avenue (Office Blocks & Commercial Mall), in Porto, from 1991-2007.

All images (c) Fernando Guerra & Sergio Guerra.

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in Debate

tagged Debate, eduardo souto de moura, pritzker prize

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