Terreiro do Palácio Nacional de Queluz
KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Gabriela Raposo, André Santos and Sara Calem)
Baldios (Armando Neves Ferreira, Catarina Raposo, Joana Marques, Pedro Gusmão, Samuel Alcobia and João Antunes)
Requalificação do Terreiro do Palácio Nacional de Queluz, Portugal; Competition
The Terreiro do Palácio de Queluz, the palace’s yard, is a space that in its essence has remained unchanged since the very beginning. Even though it is incomplete and has been suspended in time for two centuries, no subsequent urban interventions compromised the possibility of having the original design of the square completed. Our proposal is to restructure the space departing from a critical review of its evolution throughout time from both material and immaterial clues.
The unfinished formal gesture - legible from the remains of the façade fronting the Palace - suggests the ambition of symmetry and monumentality that used the square and the axis (Avenida Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco) as compositional elements of the built space and reveal a vision that has remained incomplete. We propose to revisit this intense baroque vision while using the inconsistencies and irregularities of the whole as levers that reflect its history and its present condition. The aim is not to build an anachronistic new organism but to give new coherence to the square and potentially reimagine it as birthplace of a new cultural and social context.
Starting with the question of how to capture material heritage – in a site that invokes, through traces of a more ambitious project, a strangeness and feeling of incompleteness – the proposal seeks to define the historical space of the square, characterised by an oval-shaped void flanked by two rectangular plazas and a north-south axis. The main space is to be defined by a volumetric and material alteration to the existing fabric: a subtle topographical excavation is to be paved in a homogenous texture of repurposed local basalt stone, reinforcing the new pedestrian nature of the site while simultaneously improving the legibility of the existing and imagined baroque scheme.
The proposal aims to clarify the spatial identity of the Terreiro through the erecting of the originally planned volumes around the square as a sequence of walled gardens (planted with tropical vegetation). The tectonics of these wall constructions reference the intricate patterns and decorations of the interiors in the palace, and become a threshold between the luxurious contents of the old and new architecture, and the contrasting sober character of the open space. The new constructions can host a series of activities throughout the year, providing a level of comfort and amenity inherently different to that of the surrounding landscape. Through the action of completing and unifying the territory, our proposal reaffirms the heritage of the National Palace of Queluz, in the contemporary and historical context of Greater Lisbon.
KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Gabriela Raposo, André Santos and Sara Calem)
Baldios (Armando Neves Ferreira, Catarina Raposo, Joana Marques, Pedro Gusmão, Samuel Alcobia and João Antunes)
Requalificação do Terreiro do Palácio Nacional de Queluz, Portugal; Competition
The Terreiro do Palácio de Queluz, the palace’s yard, is a space that in its essence has remained unchanged since the very beginning. Even though it is incomplete and has been suspended in time for two centuries, no subsequent urban interventions compromised the possibility of having the original design of the square completed. Our proposal is to restructure the space departing from a critical review of its evolution throughout time from both material and immaterial clues.
The unfinished formal gesture - legible from the remains of the façade fronting the Palace - suggests the ambition of symmetry and monumentality that used the square and the axis (Avenida Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco) as compositional elements of the built space and reveal a vision that has remained incomplete. We propose to revisit this intense baroque vision while using the inconsistencies and irregularities of the whole as levers that reflect its history and its present condition. The aim is not to build an anachronistic new organism but to give new coherence to the square and potentially reimagine it as birthplace of a new cultural and social context.
Starting with the question of how to capture material heritage – in a site that invokes, through traces of a more ambitious project, a strangeness and feeling of incompleteness – the proposal seeks to define the historical space of the square, characterised by an oval-shaped void flanked by two rectangular plazas and a north-south axis. The main space is to be defined by a volumetric and material alteration to the existing fabric: a subtle topographical excavation is to be paved in a homogenous texture of repurposed local basalt stone, reinforcing the new pedestrian nature of the site while simultaneously improving the legibility of the existing and imagined baroque scheme.
The proposal aims to clarify the spatial identity of the Terreiro through the erecting of the originally planned volumes around the square as a sequence of walled gardens (planted with tropical vegetation). The tectonics of these wall constructions reference the intricate patterns and decorations of the interiors in the palace, and become a threshold between the luxurious contents of the old and new architecture, and the contrasting sober character of the open space. The new constructions can host a series of activities throughout the year, providing a level of comfort and amenity inherently different to that of the surrounding landscape. Through the action of completing and unifying the territory, our proposal reaffirms the heritage of the National Palace of Queluz, in the contemporary and historical context of Greater Lisbon.
