Dos visiones sobre el vacío: Álvaro Siza –Eduardo Souto de Moura

Through the parallel analysis of two works, the “Antonio Carlos Siza” and the “Alcannena” houses, the mode of action and subsequent decision ma-king process in the projects of portuguese architects Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Soto de Moura will be detailed.

The notion of void, present in both cases and particularly materialised in the form of a patio, allows the identification of common points as well as diffe-rences in how to approach to the single-family home, a similar challenge strongly affected by a long tradition and the collective academic reflection that placed Siza and Soto de Moura in the top of portuguese and world architecture.

Spot, user, distribution, order principles, proportion, materiality, perception, spatial experience and paths are some of the aspects that help to understand how two answers to a problem initially are apparently different, even opposite, but are paradoxically equal.