Site Museum _ Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, Francisco Hidalgo Núñez, Álvaro Hidalgo Núñez y Teresa Sanchis Darocas

Fuente: Francisco Hidalgo Núñez, Álvaro Hidalgo Núñez y Teresa Sanchis Darocas

Compartimos hoy con vosotros una de las propuestas galardonadas con una mención honorífica en la pasada edición del concurso internacional de ideas convocado por ARKxSITE “Site Museum _ Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal”, y del que conocimos su resultado el pasado 27 de febrero, de la mano de sus autores, Francisco Hidalgo Núñez, Álvaro Hidalgo Núñez y Teresa Sanchis Darocas.

STRATEGY

From the very first moment we were fascinated by the history of the site: a medieval village on the top of a hill, a 2km fortified wall in its perimeter, and four towers –four doors- oriented towards the cardinal points, wherefrom four roads emerged intersecting in a square: Montemor-o-Novo had a heart. A center of all social and economic activity, a motor for the village. This was exactly what we were interested on rescuing: the old square. We wanted to re-activate this motor by gathering people again in this historic place. Which is why we propose placing here our museum.

THE AGORA

The project is an Agora at the crossroads, a square in between four bodies that have been eroded by the trace of the four historic roads. Like water breaking through a rock. An in-between space, roofed but open, where the exterior soil comes in and so does the air and the birds. An interstitial space for welcoming and redirecting the visitor, inviting him to walk freely around the site and providing a neutral center from which to do so. A heart with four possible directions, each of them with one of the towers as backdrop. All of it absorbed inside a solid prism, a rock in the landscape, that adapts to the sloping topography. 

THE PLATFORM

The platform, the radical horizontal plane, as response to a place whose skyline is comprised of the remains of what was once a prosperous medieval village. This heritage and the horizon as the only protagonists of the summit of this hill steeped in history. The decision of taking advantage of the existing slope to insert our proposal with silent determination. Any emerging element is discarded, for it could distort the spatial strength of the platform standing alone in nature: a balcony that emphasizes the landscape, wherefrom observe the ruins under our feet, sit to have a snack on the stands of the auditorium or simply gaze at the distant horizon. A solid body closely linked to stereotomic principles, that we like to imagine as a rock in the landscape, perforated when meeting a pre-existing trace of the past; may that be a ruin that it absorbs or a historic axis that breaks through it. 

LESS IS MORE

We propose therefore bringing back a place that already existed, rather than overlapping a new artificial logic to a place that already has its own character. A character that has been created over time, by the traces of occupation of the diferent civilizations that once occupied the hill. A heritage that should be protected and cherished together with its surrounding nature.