São Bento Residences

Articulating Different Times

The São Bento Residences building is situated on a notable corner in Porto's Historic Centre, next to São Bento Station, a few meters from the Sé Cathedral and Avenida dos Aliados. This corner resulted from the demolition (1940) of a front on Rua do Loureiro (an 18th-century artery) with a view to opening a new road axis: Avenida D. Afonso Henriques. This axis created an “open wound”: a granite escarpment resulting from the demolition, now maintained by the municipality as a landscape element.

The project sought to establish continuity between these different historical layers. The building is conceived as a monolithic block of exposed concrete, built and bush-hammered in situ, in dialogue with the granite escarpment and the fronts of the ruined building it now “inhabits.”

Responding to the required programme—sixteen apartments—the building fulfils two functions embodied by two distinct volumes: one absorbs and complements the 18th-century facade of Rua do Loureiro; the other inaugurates the front of Avenida D. Afonso Henriques, celebrating a new era of the city. Between the two volumes, a “fissure” opens up the entire height of the building, marking the reception and vertical accesses. On the ground floor and both fronts, a commercial space is established.

Seeking simultaneous integration into the historic city and affirmation of its contemporaneity, this project constructs a conceptual articulation between the 18th and 21st centuries.

Team
Pedra Líquida
Client
Private
Year
2016