Santana à Lapa
The history of this apartment block in Rua de Santana à Lapa is the history of choices and compromises to achieve dialogue and balance. Starting from two radically different volumes – one typically Pombaline, the other in concrete, not at all in keeping with the surrounding area – and with the objective of uniting them both into a single volume, solutions were designed and implemented that resolved the integrational problems of the two buildings, with different levels and façades facing three different streets.
It was decided to recover the Pombaline building for it established a natural and organic dialogue with the street and the city, whilst the other building was completely rebuilt. In its place, rose a building with modern characteristics, with iron balconies and windows set back in dark doorframes that are repeated in the rear façade of the Pombaline building, reinforcing the umbilical connection between these two.
Inside, the various volumes intercommunicate via a communal atrium with passageways. This system of circulation, in fact, offers unity to the two volumes with different exterior languages and distinct levels.
The materials chosen – wood, lioz stone and azulejo – underline the Portuguese identity we wished to preserve, and the language of the interiors continues and reinforces that identity mark.
The top floors of the building, facing south, have a privileged relation with the most important interlocutor of the city of Lisbon: the River Tagus.
