描述
With over 30 years of experience, Aires Mateus is a Lisbon-based architecture studio led by brothers Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus. Their work spans from urban masterplans to intimate interior designs, always grounded in collaboration—with engineers, landscape architects, economists, and community stakeholders. Each project evolves through close dialogue, from concept to completion, reflecting their belief that architecture must never be decontextualized. With a team of nearly 60, their studio structure allows for focused, dedicated project development. This issue explores their philosophy, process, and enduring commitment to architecture as a cultural and social act. Featured are key projects such as House in Monzaraz, Clichy-Batignolles, Pateos Guest Houses, Refurbishment of Variedades Theatre, L’Elysée and MUDAC Museums, and more—each revealing the studio’s rigorous yet sensitive approach to form, place, and meaning. A conversation with Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa gives insights into the evolution of Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus’ architectural thought.
Aires Mateus has over 30 years of experience in architectural design, urban planning, and the rehabilitation of historic buildings. The studio is led by brothers Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus . Their work ranges from large master plans to the design of small projects, covering every scale in between. Aires Mateus is involved in all phases of a project, from the initial steps to the delivery of the building to the client. Therefore, in their regular practice, they collaborate with various experts in the fields of engineering, landscaping, architecture, and economics, with contractors and developers, always maintaining a close and productive relationship with public agencies and community interest groups.
The relationship between design acts is intimately linked to all the information that orbits them. It cannot behave as a decontextualized discipline, because lasting architecture is not born from one’s own hands, but from a broad and precious complicity of diverse wills. This means that Aires Mateus is in constant contact with consultants throughout the different phases of a project, a way of working that ensures all the key people on his team benefit from their information.
This is the fundamental act of design, as well as, when developing a project, sharing and resolving concerns anticipated by the developer or future end users of a building.
Aires Mateus’s work is closely linked to academic activity and research. He addresses and develops diverse themes close to his heart, such as architectural quality, construction as a cultural act, the social importance of public space, the poetic role of spatiality, beauty as a force capable of capturing the desires of the human condition, and architecture’s ability to reconcile the paradoxes between construction and abstraction, while embracing its vocation as a container and support for the life that unfolds within it. With nearly 60 collaborators, including architects, designers, artists, landscape architects, and engineers, Aires Mateus’s practice is based in different studios with specific profiles and skills. The scale of the studios ensures that each project is developed in a context of proximity, concentration, demand, and dedication.
Texts
The evolution of Aires Mateus’s architectural thought.
A conversation with Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus.
Anton Garcia-Abril and Deborah Mesa
Flame and Crystal.
Marta Bogéa
House in Monsaraz
Clichy-Batignolles
House in Campo
de Ourique
Pateos Guest House
Rehabilitation of the
Variety Theater
L’Elysée and MUDAC Museums
House in Barreiro
Chapel of Bom Suceso
Santo António Farm
Mori House
House AL
House in Restelo
Museum of Fine
Arts of Reims
250-meter house
House in Quinhão do Barranco
House in Sobreiras
House in Praia das Maçãs
Nura House
House in Meco
House in Sobreiras Altas
Wabi House
New Delhi House
House in Reguengo Pequeno
House in Cabeças Ruivas
White Ruins
in the Alentejo
Rehabilitation of a
Tower in Puglia
Ephemeral architectures
