an investigation
The Portuguese National Pavilion
In 1998, architect Alvaro Liza Viera was contacted to construct a monument to the city for an Expo that they were having. His ingenious response to shading a large outdoor public pavilion? Build a bridge over it.
Although situated in an urban context, the Pavilion was situated directly next to the coast. Being an expo, it would have to be used for something after the event had concluded.
The project was located in Lisbon, the historical capital of Portugal. Located at the mouth of the Tagus River, there was a significant sea breeze coming off the bay to contend with
Alvaro Siza
Portugese Architect - Hard Modernist
Alvaro Siza, born in 1933, was an architect widely known throughout his home country as a purveyor of modernism and perhaps one of the most significant architects the areas has produced in the 20th century. Alvaro's style is significantly influenced by minimalism and modernism, as the rectangular form becomes effortless diverse in his exercises of void space and positive space.
Stressed Ribbon Bridges
Stressed Ribbon bridges use the concept of pre-stressing and tension to add "tensile" elements to the concrete. In reality, concrete is never that great at accepting tensile loads, so the tension is carried through the steel instead of the concrete - the latter of which simply accepts the form of the material.
Based off the principals of the catenary arch, the prestressed ribbon bridge is a type of structure that uses tension as a means to both model and execute a compression-based form. Catenary arches - as discussed earlier in the blog, are structures which use the weight of some type of linear element to create the strongest possible arch. Although they can be reversed to form an upwards pointing arch - in this case it was left hanging in its natural resting position. This is widely used in bridges due to its materials efficiency and simplicity of form. However, this simplicity of form was also likely to attract the eyes of a modernist.
The inclusion of the large shaded region between the two porches creates a massive outdoor area that can be reprieved from the overhead mediterranean sun.
An investigation on the logic of the Pavilion from Miro, a collaborative software