A collection of small projects in a rural landscape
Over two decades after Siza’s 1992 design for the Museum for Two Picassos in Madrid was shelved, the architect was invited to realise his ‘life and death’ building on a rural hillside in Korea. Rather than Picasso’s Mujer Embarazada and Guernica, two sculptures by Siza, also symbolising life and death, stand in each arm. Tucked into the hillside to the south, a chapel – a gift for the client’s wife – faces east to capture the light of the new day. ‘Its geometry is pure,’ Castanheira says, ‘because its function is also pure.’ Near to the long reclining form of the art pavilion, an observatory tower is proposed, replacing a scaffolding look-out surveying the countryside.
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Siza designed a beautiful rusty Corten steel piece hanging from the roof in a very tall internal space where light comes in from an opening high in the corner of the room, and a large white marble egg to be displayed in the other wing of the structure. Both were made in Portugal and shipped to Korea. One is something like an angel floating in the light, or a Christ-like figure pertaining to death, and the other is evocative of birth
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Saya Park site plan – click to download
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Saya Park chapel – click to download
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Saya Park observatory – click to download
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Saya Park art pavilion – click to download
This case study featured in this piece from the AR November issue on the Foreign + Emerging Architecture – click here to purchase your copy today
