Description

On the island of São Miguel in the Azores, the architects Menos é Mais from Porto have converted a tobacco factory into a centre for contemporary art, thereby continuing the cultural and architectural heritage both spatially and formally.

The result is an architectural ensemble that is as archaic as it is poetic. Its design is the product of an international competition for the arts centre, which the architects won together with João Mendes Ribeiro – a former fellow student who had previously realised several buildings for art and scenography with his office in Coimbra. The centre is a meeting place for visiting artists from the Old and New World and exhibits what is produced during their stay.

The former factory complex from the end of the 19^th century in the town of Ribeira Grande on the main island of São Miguel was first used for tobacco and then for alcohol production and had been disused for about fifty years. The proposal to convert it for cultural use aimed to revitalise the site and save the dilapidated substance from total decay. As the only factory on the island, it is of special significance for São Miguel. The designers’ initial response was not to change the basic form of the factory, whose striking silhouette is wonderfully analogous of the mountainous context. This premise of continuity has been adopted throughout the entire centre: two new buildings were added to the eight existing buildings, and echo in their form the characteristic geometry of the existing buildings without copying them. They have the quality of icon-like representations of the old buildings built from volcanic stone, with slightly manipulated forms and materiality. For the new buildings made of fair-faced concrete with volcanic aggregates, the Portuguese concrete manufacturer Secil was brought in to provide advice: numerous samples were prepared in their laboratories in Lisbon until the right mixture of cement and basalt stone, surface texture and colour was found. Local construction companies, with their knowledge and experience of building with volcanic rock, undertook the necessary alterations to the existing buildings. These needed to be made earthquake-resistant, but the extensive measures this entailed needed to remain invisible. The walls, already several metres thick, had to be reinforced internally.

The insertion of the two new buildings turns the site into a miniature urban ensemble which one experiences quite naturally. From a public square at the entrance, bounded by a new and an old building, an alleyway leads on to a central square, bordered by a large space for events. The individual buildings are connected by internal streets. The old buildings house the artists’ living areas, workshops and rehearsal rooms as well as the factory museum and museum shop, while the new buildings house rooms with special requirements that were not compatible with the old buildings. The multifunctional hall with a flexible stage and auditorium forms the heart of the complex.

Even after seven years of planning and execution, the actual constructions costs were within 1% of the estimated 12 million euros for 13,000 square metres of usable space. The architects did, however, admit to allowing themselves one extravagance: all window and door openings are lined by a single brass profile – delineating the openings in both the volcanic stone masonry as well the exposed concrete – further underlining the sense of continuity.

Originally published in Bauwelt 22.2015, pp. 14-21, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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