An Introduction to Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura

Bom Jesus House

Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura works mainly in his native Portugal designing both private houses and major urban projects. Browse this photo gallery for a sampling of architecture by the 2011 Pritzker Laureate.

Souto de Moura has designed many houses, and House Number Two in the Bom Jesus section of Braga, Portugal presented special challenges.

"Because the site was a fairly steep hill overlooking the city of Braga, we decided not to produce a large volume resting on a hilltop," Souto de Moura told the Pritzker Prize committee. "Instead, we made the construction on five terraces with retainer walls, with a different function defined for each terrace-- fruit trees on the lowest level, a swimming pool on the next, the main parts of the house on the next, bedrooms on the fourth, and on the top, we planted a forest.”

In their citation, the Pritzker Prize jury noted the subtle banding in the concrete walls, giving the home "uncommon richness."

House Number Two in Bom Jesus was completed in 1994.

See more modern houses: Gallery of Modern House Designs

Braga Stadium

Braga Stadium was literally constructed from the mountainside, using concrete made from crushed granite. Removing the granite created a sheer stone wall, and that natural wall forms one end of the stadium.

"It was a drama to break down the mountain and make concrete from the stone," Souto de Moura told the Pritzker Prize committee. The Pritzker jury citation calls Braga Stadium "...muscular, monumental and very much at home within its powerful landscape."

Completed in 2004, Portugal's Braga Stadium hosted the European soccer championships.

Burgo Tower

Completed in 2007, Burgo Tower is part of an office complex in the Avenida da Boavista in Porto (Oporto), Portugal.

"A twenty story office tower is an unusual project for me," architect Eduardo Souto de Moura told the Pritzker Prize committee. "I began my career building single family houses."

Burgo Tower is, according to the Pritzker Prize jury, actually "two buildings side by side, one vertical and one horizontal with different scales, in dialog with each other and the urban landscape."

The square, rectangular forms of the buildings are deceptively simple. Souto de Moura detailed these pure shapes with sheathing, sometimes transparent and sometimes opaque, that wraps the entire structure.

An open square displays a massive sculpture by Portuguese architect/artist Nadir de Afonso.

Cinema House

From 1998 until 2003, Eduardo Souto de Moura worked on this very postmodernist house for Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira (1908-2015). The film director lived an especially long life, experiencing the censorship of political upheavals and technological advances from silent to digital cinema.  Souto de Moura brought new life and architectural design to Porto (Oporto), Portugal.

See more modern houses: Gallery of Modern House Designs

Paula Rêgo Museum

Completed in 2008, the Paula Rêgo Museum in one of Eduardo Souto de Moura's most highly-praised works. In their citation, the Pritzker Prize jury called the Paula Rêgo Museum "both civic and intimate, and so appropriate for the display of art."

Serra da Arrábida

"To build half a million homes with pediments and columns would be a wasted effort," Eduardo Souto de Moura said in his 2011 Pritzker acceptance speech. "Post-Modernism came to Portugal almost without the country having experienced a Modern movement."

From 1994 to 2002 Souto de Moura expressed his postmodernist ideas in this house in Serra da Arrábida, Portugal.

Porto Metro

From 1997 to 2005 architect Souto de Moura worked on an architectural project for the Porto Metro (subway) in Porto, Portugal.

About Eduardo Souto de Moura, b. 1952

Eduardo Souto de Moura (born July 25, 1952, in Porto, Portugal) is praised for conveying complex ideas through simple geometries and richly textured materials. His work spans from small residential projects to expansive city plans. Souto de Moura was named the Pritzker Prize winner for 2011.

He started out as an art major, but switched to architecture, earning a degree in 1980 from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Oporto (Porto). Early on Souto de Moura worked with architect Noé Dinis (in 1974) and then Álvaro Siza for five years (1975-1979). In addition to the Portuguese architect Siza, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1992, Souto de Moura has said he was also influenced by the American postmodern architect Robert Venturi, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1991.

Eduardo Souto de Moura in his Own Words

" I think architecture communicates, but only after it is built. I didn’t intend for the stadium to communicate something in particular, and if it speaks to the people who use it, that’s great, but not something I considered beforehand. In my opinion, narrative architecture is a disaster. Architecture is meant to serve functionality first and foremost."—2012 Interview

" The project is the management of doubts."—2011, Q+A The Architect's Newspaper

" For me architecture is a global issue. There is no ecological architecture, no intelligent architecture, no fascist architecture, no sustainable architecture – there is only good and bad architecture. There are always problems we must not neglect; for example energy, resources, costs, social aspects – one must always pay attention to all these!....We can also look at it another way: there is nothing but sustainable architecture—because the first precondition of architecture is sustainability.”—2004, 1st Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction

Learn More

• Eduardo Souto de Moura by Antonio Esposito, Phaidon, 2013
• Eduardo Souto de Moura: Architect by Eduardo Souto De Muora, 2009
• Eduardo Souto de Moura by Aurora Cuito, Te Neues Publishing, 2003
• Eduardo Souto de Moura: Sketchbook No. 76 by Eduardo Souto de Moura, Lars Muller, 2012
• Eduardo Souto Moura: At Work by Juan Rodriguez, 2014
• Buy on Amazon

^{Sources: "Interview with Eduardo Souto de Moura," at www.igloo.ro/en/articles/interview/, igloo habitat & arhitectură #126, June 2012, Igloo Magazine; Q+A Eduardo Souto de Moura with Vera Sacchetti, The Architect's Newspaper, April 25, 2011; 1st Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction, September 2004, Lafarge Holcim Foundation Book - BUY PRINTED VERSION (PDF, p. 105, 107) [accessed July 18, 2015; December 12, 2015; July 23, 2016]}