Four Dwellings Matosinhos

The 4 houses that occupy the 3 volumes, closed off from the street but facing the gardens and public space, are marked by the contrast between the compartmentalizing of bedrooms and the fluidity of the sitting rooms. They reveal themselves as labs for the architecture that the author develops, with experiences and influences of vernacular Japanese way of construction, in stone walls and wood details; and the popular Portuguese way of building, in roofs, carpentry work and stairs. Le Corbusier contaminates the spans and plasters, Alvar Aalto the intimate spaces, Walter Gropius the functionality, and finally, Antonio Gaudí the gates and the exuberant and extravagant chimney, covered with glass mosaics, a novelty in the 1950s, learned in the studio of Fernando Távora.