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This year, Eduardo Souto de Moura received the Praemium Imperiale for his contribution to the culture of architecture. After the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2011) and the Wolf Prize (2013), he felt he had won enough rewards. I took the opportunity to travel to Porto to visit him in his office, a three-story building close to the river Douro just before it reaches the Ocean. Designed by Álvaro Siza, after a competition between Fernando Távora, Siza and Souto de Moura, and built some years ago, each floor is occupied by the office of one of the three architects.
Not unlike other human beings, architects too, are concerned with who will get the next award. Eduardo is, without doubt, pleased by this acknowledgment. He is more concerned about European Community legislation and the environmental lobby’s insistence on absurd regulations, like, for example, wall thickness specifications.
We talked about friends we have in common. Eduardo still cannot forgive Kenneth Frampton for putting him and Siza in the category of “Critical Regionalism” when they are among the leading lights of world architecture. Mention was made of a book in which the author compared Mies van der Rohe with Mondrian. A great admirer of Mies, but not at all of Mondrian, Eduardo wondered whether the connection could be wrong. Yes, I agreed, adding, however, that it was not one we could correct in any way.
Eduardo remembered his visit to...
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