Study of Alvaro Siza’s ‘U Type’ Architectural Thought and Its Operational Mechanism

Abstract

This study aims at combing several clues of the source of ‘U Type’ in Siza’s architecture, analyzing the ‘duality’ of ‘U Type’ to reveal the reason why Siza chose ‘U Type’ as prototype in the appropriate contexts, and discussing the operational mechanism how ‘U type’ approaches or transforms to reality from three levels: group differentiation of ‘big U type’, monomer deformation of ‘small U type’, and composition of multiple ‘U type’. This paper points out that Siza’s ‘U Type’ is the result of the comprehensive transformation of diverse factors, such as Portuguese courtyard residence tradition, Nordic Scandinavian organic architectural culture, Le Corbusier’s architectural heritage, and traditional basilica’s A-B-A spatial form. As a prototype that contains multiple ‘duality’ which is also degenerative, ‘U Type’ shows the significance of ‘Universality’, this is why Siza repeatedly used ‘U type’ to intervene on reality. In the relatively empty or bad context with the absence of the ‘root of the city’, ‘U Type’ resets the starting point, absorbs the site with its concave semi-open form, and transforms from closed to open, from simple to complex, from rational to poetic (reality) through a series of operations such as ‘differentiation and connection, deformation and growth, composition and adjustment’ which is to respond the problem of reality.