Eduardo Souto de Moura

Convento de Santa Maria do Bouro

This project aims to adapt, or rather, to make use of the stones available to put up a new building.

It is a new building, in which various voices and functions (some already registered, others still to be constructed) intervene; it is not a reconstruction of the building in its original form.

For this project, the ruins are more important than the «Convent», it is they that are open and manipulable, just as the building was during its history. (…)

During the design process, lucidity was sought for between the form and the program. Faced with two possible paths, we chose to reject the pure and simple consolidation of the ruin for the sake of contemplation, opting instead for the introduction of new materials, uses, forms and functions «entre les choses», as Corbusier said. The «picturesque» is a question of fate, not part of a project or program.