The proposal of the runner up group made up by Souto Moura Arquitectos, Juan Miguel Hernández León and Carlos de Riaño Lozano for the extension and rehabilitation of the Salón de Reinos [Hall of Realms], building which belongs to El Prado Museum, follows a different path than the one chosen by many finalists, who bet for a new diaphanous space and a new facade overlapping the existing one. Instead, the Portuguese practice opted for the redistribution of uses with the help of the addition and extraction of volumes and for an intervention in the adjacent public space.

Thus, the practice Souto de Moura, along with Juan Miguel Hernández León and Carlos de Riaño Lozano, creates an urban space in front of the main access from which the visitors can access to the Salón de Reinos, where the intervention acts in a very subtle way. A very important part of the project is the reconfiguration of both external and internal flowing, in order to bring coherence to the whole project and to promote the urban activity in its vicinity.

Description of the project by Eduardo Souto de Moura, Juan Miguel Hernández León and Carlos de Riaño Lozano

In an architecture whose condition is determined by the juxtaposition of strata that belong to different historical periods and ,sometimes, of contradictory stylistic decisions. While not ceasing to be a fragment of the Buen Retiro palace, the reference to an original form remains, at least, retained in the memory of what it used to be, and in the images and documents that retain what is already hopelessly lost.

Renunciation and suppression as rules of a formal dialectic that reconcile the moments in which the need to host new uses coexist with the will to give back to its image the constancy of its uniqueness. Addition of the new that assumes the hierarchy of what is understood as permanent.

Analogical restoration of what was left masked by the less fortunate enlargements of previous interventions. Opening to the public space to strengthen the relationship with the expansion of the museum campus that is intended.

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Architects
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Eduardo Elisio Machado Souto de Moura, Juan Miguel Hernández León, Carlos de Riaño Lozano
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Team architects
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Afonso Romana, Simao Sandim, Ludovico Dallari Bondanini, Ludovico Dallari Bondanini, Diogo Guimaraes, Álvaro Miguel Hernández Altozano, Almudena Peralta Quintanta, Carlos de Riaño Carril
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Quantity surveyors
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María del Hierro González, José Carlos Fernández Casal
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Engineering
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Emilio González Gaya, J.G. Ingenieros S.A., Alfredo Mario da Costa Pereira, Carlos Domínguez de Prados, CD Ingeniería de instalaciones, Julio Martínez Calzón, Consultrans, SAU, Jesús Azpeita Calvin, Óscar de Gregorio Vicente, Álvaro Romero de la Torre
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Collaborators
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Gregorio Ignacio Yañez Santiago, Delfín Rodríguez Ruíz, Arménio Teixeira, André Campos
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Built surface
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7158 sqm
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Usable area
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6267 sqm
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Budget (without taxes)
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24.408.306,58 €
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Eduardo Souto de Moura was born in Porto, Portugal in 1952. His father was a doctor (ophthalmologist) and his mother a home maker. He has one brother and one sister. The sister is also a doctor and his brother is a lawyer with a political career – formerly he was Attorney General of Portugal.

Following his early years at the Italian School, Souto de Moura enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Porto, where he began as an art student, studying sculpture, but eventually achieving his degree in architecture. He credits a meeting with Donald Judd in Zurich for the switch from art to architecture. While still a student, he worked for architect Noé Dinis and then Álvaro Siza, the latter for five years. While studying and working with his professor of urbanism, Architect Fernandes de Sá, he received his first commission, a market project in Braga which has since been demolished because of changing business patterns.

After 2 years of military service he won the competition for the Cultural Centre in Porto. The beginning of his career as an independent architect.

He is frequently invited as a guest professor to Lausanne and Zurich in Switzerland as well as Harvard in the United States. These guest lectures at universities and seminars over the years have afforded him the opportunity to meet many colleagues in the field, among them Jacques Herzog and Aldo Rossi.

He is married and he has 3 daughters: Maria Luisa, Maria da Paz e Maria Eduarda.His wife, Luisa Penha, and the eldest daughter are architects, the second is a nurse and the third is on the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Oporto for the 3rd year.

Along with his architecture practice, Souto de Moura is a professor at the University of Oporto, and is a visiting professor at Geneva, Paris-Belleville, Harvard, Dublin and the ETH Zurich and Lausanne.

Often described as a neo-Miesian, but one who constantly strives for originality, Souto de Moura has achieved much praise for his exquisite use of materials -- granite, wood, marble, brick, steel, concrete -- as well as his unexpected use of color. Souto de Moura is clear on his view of the use of materials, saying, “I avoid using endangered or protected species. I think we should use wood in moderation and replant our forests as we use the wood. We have to use wood because it is one of the finest materials available.”

In an interview with Croquis, he explained, “I find Mies increasingly fascinating...There is a way of reading him which is just to regard him as a minimalist. But he always oscillated between classicism and neoplasticism...You only have to remember the last construction of his life, the IBM building, with that powerful travertine base that he drilled through to produce a gigantic door. Then on the other hand, he arrived in Barcelona and did two pavilions, didn’t he? One was abstract and neo plastic and the other one was 9 classical, symmetrical with closed corners...He was experimenting. He was already so modern he was ‘post’.”

Souto de Moura acknowledges the Miesian influence, speaking of his Burgo Tower, but refers people to something written by Italian journalist and critic, Francesco Dal Co, “it’s better not to be original, but good, rather than wanting to be very original and bad.”

At a series of forums called the Holcim Forum on sustainable architecture, Souto de Moura stated, “For me, architecture is a global issue. There is no ecological architecture, no intelligent architecture, no sustainable architecture — there is only good architecture. There are always problems we must not neglect; for example, energy, resources, costs, social aspects — one must always pay attention to all these.”

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Carlos de Riaño Lozano. Born in El Sardinero, Cantabria. Architect by the School of Architecture of Madrid in 1977. Since 1977 he has his own studio in Madrid. His work has garnered numerous distinctions in the field of collective housing and the renovation of heritage. Among his projects are the project for 20 dwellings on Calle Cervantes in Madrid (2006), the contest for the rehabilitation of the walled enclosure of the XII century in Madrid (2006), the Contest for the Visigothic Museum in Mérida (2007), or in 2012, the first Esteban Esteve prize 2008-2011 of the Cadiz Architects Association for the Central Market of Supplies of Cádiz.

His work has been published in various Spanish and foreign publications.
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