“We really like to understand this exhibition as a kind of space laboratory,” explained Nuno Crespo, the curator of the exhibition that explores the journey of architects Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus through 91 pieces, highlighting the diversity of materials, scales, and programs the Portuguese duo has worked on both in Portugal and abroad.
The exhibition, on display in the Siza Vieira Wing of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art from November 28 to April 19, is organized into five exhibition areas entitled “Jardim” (Garden), “Matéria” (Material), “Tempo” (Time), “Lugares” (Places), and “Geografias” (Geographies).
In the “Jardim” section, visitors find themselves in a dimly lit room with an intimate atmosphere, where they discover several dozen suspended models that represent the architectural projects or details of the Aires Mateus brothers’ work at various scales.
The exhibition includes some of the duo’s iconic projects, such as the symbolic houses in Alenquer and Azeitão, the Research Center in Furnas (Azores), houses on the sand in Comporta, the EDP headquarters in Lisbon, museums in Lausanne (Switzerland) and Tours (France), the Faculty of Architecture in Tournoi (Belgium), houses on Fogo Island in Cape Verde, a house in Melbourne (Australia), among many others.
The use of wood, brick, concrete, and plaster in the projects reveals that “material also creates space, besides creating form” and indicates an “investigation into materiality,” as the two architects explained during a press visit.
When asked if this exhibition is a journey through two decades of work, Francisco Aires Mateus affirmed that it is, because all exhibitions, particularly beyond a certain scale, are a kind of “critical revisitation.”
“They are a point of pause and analysis of what we are doing because we look at ourselves critically. We have to do it,” Francisco Aires Mateus stated.
Manuel Aires Mateus adds that this exhibition fundamentally serves to look into the future: “The great advantage of an exhibition is being able to organize one’s house to move towards the future. We are not interested in continuing from what we already know. We are interested in discovering what we don’t know. Often organizing what we’ve done allows us to think about what we haven’t done, and that is the part that interests us the most.”
According to Nuno Crespo, “Beauty Despite Everything” is an exhibition that explores the “principles of spatial construction” that Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus have used in some of their projects.
“It is not an anthology, it is not chronological, but it is an exhibition that allows revisiting some projects […] not to organize them, but to truly explore them,” as if it were a laboratory experiment.
This journey through the architects’ path is not a journey in time, nor a journey in the history or curriculum of these architects, but a “journey through different types or typologies of spatial experiences,” concluded Nuno Crespo.
“Beauty Despite Everything” will be on display at Serralves until April 19, 2026.
