Eduardo Souto de Moura - Portugal
Office and Trade Buildings Burgo
Avenida da Boavista 1837, Porto
1991 - 2007


This office complex is located in the Avenida da Boavista, the biggest straight line avenue in Portugal that extends from "Casa da Música" till the Sea in West.
The parcel for this building is located in the area, where the Avenida da Boavista ceases to be a through street and starts to fragment itself into discontinuous sections.
This complex consists of two buildings, one horizontal and the other vertical, defining a large square between them. The square is occupied by a big sculpture by
Nadir de Afonso, an architect / sculptor who origins from Porto. The buildings were drawn with very simple shapes, following the influences of Mies and the Chicago buildings.
The low ribbon-like building is more related with the anonymity of the surrouning constructions, while the tower, set back from the avenue, rises up from the platform.
The main interest about the building is its façade. Its skin is composed out of a single module that wraps all the volumes. That module was studied so it could fit
in 2 different ways creating a glass façade and an opaque façade.
While the horizontal building clearly shows its height of three stories, the tower hides the true
number of floors within. The repetition of the element makes the observer to lose any relation to the scale. The 17-storey tower is considered to be the most
cosmopolitan building in the city of Porto.

 
Eduardo Souto de Moura told about this project, that a tower is not a normal commission, even less for him, who never befor had designed a building with elevator.