Stone boxes: this new cultural centre is a collection of stone containers meshed into the heart of the old city.

Currently under construction, Aires Mateus' new cultural centre in Sines in southern Portugal represents a consolidation of ideas and ambitions tested at a smaller scale--the play of mute, austere volumes, a sensitivity to materials and the notion of served and servant spaces. Here, however, unlike the Rector's Offices in Lisbon (p56), the context does not lend itself to an object building. Instead the challenge is to integrate a new element into a dense urban matrix.

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The site for the new cultural centre lies at the edge of Sines' historic core, near the town's medieval castle (reputedly the birthplace of Vasco da Gama). From here, a winding road links the town centre with the sea below. The brief called for a wide range of functions, including a library, cinema-cum-theatre, exhibition spaces and a documentation centre. As the site is quite compact, much of the building is buried underground.

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Above ground, it reads as an ensemble of hermetic stone boxes incised with continuous horizontal strips of glazing at ground level, so providing a sense of animation for passers-by. Isolating the various activities such as the theatre and library within individual containers is a logical solution, both functionally and acoustically. Between the boxes are long thin patio gardens together with a broader public thoroughfare that connects up with and locks into the existing streets, drawing people through the complex. Tightly hemmed in place like Ethiopian rock churches, the stone boxes are impermeable, inscrutable presences in Sines' urban matrix. Aires Mateus clearly enjoy and exploit materials, and the way in which the geology of the stone is celebrated has overtones of the sensual rigour of Swiss architects such as Peter Zumthor. The apparent simplicity and unaffectedness of the forms might lend itself to the vagaries of Portugal's relatively unsophisticated construction industry, but that is not to say that this is uncomplicated architecture. Its effect lies in considered subtleties--in which way a joint is formed, materials juxtaposed and light handled. In another future project, Aires Mateus are due to complete a hotel in Dublin, inspired by the geological formations of the Giant's Causeway, taking their explorations of the primordial and architecture a stage further.

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Architect

Aires Mateus, Lisbon