The reconstruction of the Chiado in Lisbon. Álvaro Siza and the artifice of heteronomy

Abstract

The plan conceived by Álvaro Siza to rebuild the Chiado neighbourhood in Lisbon, following a blaze which wiped out four whole city blocks between Baixa and Bairro Alto in August 1988, was based on a dense system of relationships at different scales. Siza’s proposal worked on redefining the relationship between the volumetric structure of the destroyed buildings, organized within the Marquis of Pombal’s grid plan, and a system of interstitial spaces which rediscovered traces of ancient routes, hidden away by the Cartesian rigour of a reconstruction following the earthquake of 1755. Siza proposed a spatial experience which allows us to amble through the various layers of the place’s memory, where the traces of the fire are intermingled with those left by the earthquake. A web of perceptual and mental connexions which substantiated the idea of a city based on relationships, with the fabric seen as a three-dimensional web of geometries and epochs, supporting the implementation and development of a body which is sometimes complex, sometimes not, as opposed to a flat pattern punctuated by events.