Architecture | Eduardo Souto de Moura’s Runner-Up Submission for M9’s Museum Project

This is the third of three posts about the M9 museum’s architectural competition for its building in Venice Mestre (on the mainland opposite Venice). You can read parts one and two in this week’s issue. After you’re done looking at the buildings, please tell us in the comments which one you would have picked for the museum, had you been on the jury.

The final submission in the series is Eduardo Souto de Moura’s proposal which, like Chipperfield’s, sought to blend the museum in with the surrounding city. In the video below Souto de Moura, of Porto, Portugal, stresses the importance of working within the confines of a historic city. Beyond being a good steward of the space he has to work with, his idea was to reuse existing brick from the area and to keep the windows looking similar to nearby buildings. He wanted to do this while at the same time creating a modern space with new building techniques.

“It’s a project that is non-aggressive: a museum for the future built now, but using old material. I will try to find the material and the balance that were already there… This continuity interests me… Today museums are the churches of our culture… The new museums are like a different kind of house, open to the public.”

Souto de Moura first worked as an architect within a group which was established to cope with a shortage of affordable housing in Portugal, according to his biography on M9. Since then, he’s worked on several museums. M9 states that he stands out as the most consistent and original heir of the cultural tradition that had formed in his country. His works “re-elaborate traditional building types, using a synthetic language and construction methods with low technological content.”

What do you think? How does his design compare to the other two proposals we profiled in this issue? Let us know in the comments which building you prefer.

Above image: Eduardo Souto de Moura’s proposal for the M9 museum in Venice Mestre.