Estruturas em Portugal - Uma Introdução
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“Casa da Música” is one of those projects in which architecture and engineering are inseparable and strengthen each other. The challenge was to fit a complex functional programme into an object with an unusual form while also ensuring that the support structure should be an integral part of the architect’s spatial concept.
For the architect, the elements which engineering needs are opportunities and themes that give form to the space.
Making structural sense, columns and sloping walls are formally worked on and integrated into the design, not by disguising them but sometimes by giving them an unexpected leading role.
This process creates an initial conceptual freedom which, through strict formal control, leads to the desired result.
The initial idea was for a translucent building with a steel structure. Cost reasons and the loss of the transparency effect, which was the inevitable result of the structural elements’ density, led to the choice of white concrete.
Although it clearly appealed to the architect, white concrete had not been proposed initially because it is not a common material in Northern European countries where it is difficult to find skilled labour to carry out top quality work in exposed concrete.
The project began in September 1999, following a competition won by the joint-venture of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Ove Arup & Partners of which AFAssociados was already a part. The temporary work design and concrete construction phasing was undertaken in 2001 by AFAssociados.
