Location: Porto, Portugal.

Architect: spaceworkers®.

The Interpretation Centre of Romanesque is located in the Village of Lousada, Portugal, and seeks to create a relationship with the site by its implantation on the village square limit. The building contains the principles of unity within diversity, appearing under the form of several volumes with different heights and dimensions, demonstrating the diversity that Romanesque buildings have left us. Each volume is a distinct exhibition space, and to explore the relation between them, it was created an idea of rural street as a unifying element and generator of life experiences – a cloister – a central body covered by glass that procedes the entry in each volume. Internally the exhibition spaces reflect a bit of monumentality, referring us to the interior of the Romanesque buildings, not only for its scale but also by their shapes. Therefore, each of the volumes ceilings reinterprets one of the roof types used in Romanesque architecture. As materiality it was eligible the nowadays stone to build the building – the concrete in its apparent and austere natural state. Therefore, building always tries to be contemporary but without forgetting the important past, by creating an atmospheric symbiosis between this different times.

Photo credit: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra.