visitor center : evora (PT) : competition entry : 2016


The visitor Center not only co-exists with the menhir in a retrospective manner, but also creates a new comment while avoiding disturbance of the site’s aura.

The exterior can be read as a subtle intervention of the landscape which carries ritual and mythological past. The body of the building sinks in the earth, rests on the slope and welcomes the visors with meditative silence.

Placed as objects, the interior rooms echo the standing stones. They ritualize the movement within the building, Sun light, filtered by the roof, gives varied characters to each space and guides the visitors through the underground space. The dim atmosphere, with the application of rough in-situ concrete, contrasts with the bright landscape and indicates another way of perception that could as well be primitive, provocative and slightly uncanny.