"Every design," says Siza, "is a rigorous attempt to capture a concrete moment of a transitory image in all its nuances. The extent to which this transitory quality is captured, is reflected in the designs: the more precise they are, the more vulnerable."

While working on a sizable office building design for Porto, Siza discounted any possibility of blending the new building by imitating its surroundings. The area was too important since it was between the historic center of the city and a bridge that has great significance because it was built by Eiffel in 1866. He explained, "We have gone beyond the stage whereby unity of language was believed to be the universal solution for architectural problems. Recognizing that complexity is the nature of the city, transformational movements take on very different forms."

Siza, whose full name is Alvaro Joaquim de Meio Siza Vieira, was born on June 25, 1933 in the small coastal town of Matosinhos, just north of Porto, Portugal. Siza studied at the University of Porto School of Architecture from 1949 through 1955, completing his first built works (four houses in Matosinhos) even before ending his studies in 1954. That same year he opened his private practice in Porto.

In 1966, Siza began teaching at the University, and in 1976, he was made a tenured Professor of Architecture. In addition to his teaching there, he has been a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the University of Pennsylvania; Los Andes University of Bogota; and the Ecole Polytechnique of Lausanne.

In addition, he has been a guest lecturer at many universities and conferences throughout the world, from the United States, Colombia and Argentina to Spain, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and England in Europe.

In recent years, he has received honors from foundations and institutions in Europe, including, the Alvar Aalto Foundation Gold Medal in 1988, the renowned Mies van der Rohe Foundation Award the Borges & Irmao Bank in Vila do Conde, Portugal (1982-86). In the United States in 1988, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design recognized Siza for his Malagueira Quarter Housing Project in Evora, Portugal that began in 1977, presenting him with the first Veronica Rudge Green Prize, often referred to as the Prince of Wales Prize for Urban Design.

Alvaro Siza of Portugal Is Named the 1992 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate

Alvaro Siza, who has been praised by his peers in Europe as one this century's finest architects, but is relatively unknown to most of the world, has been elected to receive his profession's highest honor, the 1992 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Jay A. Pritzker, president of The Hyatt Foundation, which established the award in 1979, will present Siza with a $100,000 grant, a medallion and certificate at a formal ceremony on May 14, to be held at the recently dedicated Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago, Illinois.

In making the announcement from The Hyatt Foundation's headquarters in Chicago, Pritzker hailed the choice of the jury that made the selection, saying, "Not since the late Luis Barragán of Mexico was elected Laureate in the second year of the prize have we honored someone whose work has so eluded the international spotlight, but is none the less worthy. Bestowing this prize will help focus public attention on yet another facet of excellence in the profession."

Siza joins an exclusive fraternity of Pritzker Laureates that includes seven architects from England, Italy, Japan, Austria, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and seven more from the United States.

The architecture of Alvaro Siza is a joy to the senses and uplifts the spirit. Each line and curve is placed with skill and sureness.

Like the early Modernists, his shapes, molded by light, have a deceptive simplicity about them; they are honest. They solve design problems directly. If shade is needed, an overhanging plane is placed to provide it. If a view is desired, a window is made. Stairs, ramps and walls all appear to be foreordained in a Siza building. That simplicity, upon closer examination however, is revealed as great complexity. There is a subtle mastery underlying what appears to be natural creations. To paraphrase Siza's own words, his is a response to a problem, a situation in transformation, in which he participates.

If Post Modernism had not claimed the term, and distorted its meaning, Alvaro Siza's buildings might legitimately have been called by that name. His architecture proceeds directly from Modernist influences that dominated the field from 1920 to 1970.

While Siza himself would reject categorization, his architecture, as an extension of Modernist principles and aesthetic sensibility, is also an architecture of various respects: respect for the traditions of his native Portugal, a country of time worn materials and shapes; respect for context, whether it is an older building or neighborhood such as the Chiada Quarter in Lisbon, or the rocky edge of the ocean in his swimming club in Porto; and finally, respect for the times in which today's architect practices with all its constraints and challenges.

Siza's characteristic attention to spatial relationships and appropriateness of form are as germane to a single family residence as they are to a much larger social housing complex or office building. The essence and quality of his work is not affected by scale.

The Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago, Illinois

A competition in 1988 led to the selection of the design of the Chicago firm Hammond Beeby & Babka to build the new main library in downtown Chicago. Opened in 1991, three of the four facades of the weighty building recall neo-classical structures and Chicago’s legacy of fine buildings, such as the Auditorium Theater or the Monadnock Building. These facades are faced in stone and brick with five-story tall architect windows. The west façade, however, is sheathed in glass and steel creating a neutral backdrop for the significant buildings across the street from the library. The building is crowned with a prominent roof adorned with owls perched in foliage, giant seed pods, symbolizing the crops of the Midwest and other classically inspired details.

The grand space of the Library is found at the top of the building. The sky lit Winter Garden recalls a generous exterior courtyard and formed the setting for the 1992 Pritzker Architecture Prize ceremony when Alvaro Siza of Portugal received the award.

Read Alvaro Siza's Ceremony Acceptance Speech

Read Jay Pritzker's Ceremony Speech

Read J. Carter Brown's Ceremony Speech

Read Bill Lacy's Ceremony Speech

Ceremony Highlights