The surgical encounter between architectural geometry and natural organicity.: Álvaro siza’s ocean swimming pool (1960–1973)
- Autores: Hugo Mendonça
- Localización: La modernidad marítima: arquitecturas e infraestructuras del paisaje litoral, 1925-1975 : Actas XIII Congreso Docomomo Ibérico ,A Coruña, 22-26 de octubre de 2025 / coord. por Fundación Docomomo ibérico, 2025, ISBN 978-84-09-77104-2, págs. 168-177
- Idioma: inglés
- Títulos paralelos:
- El encuentro quirúrgico entre la geometría arquitectónica y la organicidad natural.: La piscina oceánica de Alvaro Siza (1960-1973).
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The popularization of beachgoing in Portugal during the twentieth century, associated with the typicallyrough sea conditions of the northern Atlantic, led to the promotion, by several coastal towns, of seawaterswimming pools. It was the case of the Ocean Swimming Pool, located in Leça da Palmeira and designedby Álvaro Siza (1933–) between 1960 and 1973. Conceived as part of a Coastal Development Plan (1966),which included other works by Siza such as the Boa Nova Tea House (1959–1963), the Ocean SwimmingPool Restaurant (1965), and the Monument to the poet António Nobre (1967), this work was marked from theoutset by broader concerns regarding the urban scale of the intervention which superseded the architecturalobject itself. Overarching concerns over landscape integration were reflected in multiple design decisions andattempts to harmonize the abstraction of the architectural language with the natural surroundings. Therefore,by delving into the bathing complex’s design process, including hesitations and unrealized proposals, thispaper aims to deepen analysis on the architect’s theoretical anxieties and design strategies. The researchmethodology incorporates the cross-analysis of unpublished archival material and bibliographical research,associated with the in-situ analysis of the building. The results demonstrate this work’s contribution for thecritical revision of the modern movement, in a period in which the internationalist solutions of the modernmovement were being contested and alternatives were being rehearsed, by articulating early modernistinfluences such as the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architectural principles of Le Corbusier, japanesearchitecture and an aesthetic of raw materials which is coherent with the Brutalist movement then emerging
