From October 3, 2025, to January 9, 2026, the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM) hosts “Siza”, a monographic exhibition dedicated to the life and work of the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira. This exhibition is one of the highlights of the 22nd International Architecture Week in Madrid, for which Portugal is the guest country in 2025.

At its core, “Siza” is centered on the role of drawing in Siza Vieira’s creative process. The exhibition brings together original drawings, sketches, working plans, final blueprints, photographs, design objects, and audiovisual material. Many of the items on display come from major institutions and archives, including the Serralves Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), the British center Drawing Matter, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and Siza’s own studio.

Practical information

“Siza”
October 3, 2025 – January 9, 2026
COAM Madrid
C/ de Hortaleza, 63, Madrid
Madrid

The Madrid presentation is partly derived from a preceding version shown at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, running from May to August 2024. Under the curation of Carlos Quintáns, the exhibition offers a structured journey through Siza’s trajectory, organized around thematic concepts and his enduring formal and spatial concerns.

Among the exhibited items are 22 original drawings and six digital reproductions, associated with eight architectural projects, including his house in Santo Tirso (1976–78), the João de Deus Kindergarten in Penafiel (1984–91), the Setúbal College of Education, the Aveiro University Library, the Santa Maria Church in Marco de Canaveses, the Revigrés showroom in Águeda, and the Pego house in Sintra (2002–07).

Objectives and Significance

The aim of “Siza” is to address all creative dimensions of Siza’s path: from sketch to built form, from private projects to institutional works, and from early experiments to mature masterworks. In doing so, the exhibition highlights Siza’s consistency across decades and his ability to balance the local and the modern, tradition and innovation.

Carlos Quintáns reports that while preparing the show, he and his team examined more than 200,000 documents, including hundreds of notebooks filled with sketches from Siza’s archives preserved abroad (such as at the CCA in Montreal). He describes finding “hundreds of school-type notebooks full of drawings,” which he considered the real origin of Siza’s architectural thinking. To complement these, Siza requested inclusion of some drawings by his late wife and also works by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and the Portuguese painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso.

The exhibition also situates Siza’s works within a broader narrative: the importance of environmental sensitivity, adaptation to context, continuity in architectural language, and the dialogue between built form and topography. As Madrid’s COAM notes, the curatorial ambition was to go beyond fragmented or thematic studies and present a comprehensive retrospective of Siza’s multi-faceted career.

Associated Activities and Logistic Details

The exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 9:00 – 20:00, at the access floor of the COAM building (Calle Hortaleza). The show is one of the anchors of the 2025 International Architecture Week in Madrid, which runs from October 3 to 13. Beyond exhibitions, the week includes conferences, guided visits, urban itineraries, workshops, a design market (Pop Arq Store), and concerts.

One special event held prior to the show is titled “La obsesión del dibujo: la arquitectura de Álvaro Siza”, on October 2, which delves into conceptual underpinnings of Siza’s approach, his relationship with place, form, and materials, with contributions from architects and scholars.

By including Portugal as guest country and dedicating its main showcase to Siza, this edition of the Architecture Week also emphasizes the cultural and architectural dialogue between Spain and Portugal.

Why It Matters

“Siza” provides a rare opportunity to see original drawings and archival material that rarely travel, offering insight into the conceptual genesis of some of Siza’s most celebrated works. For architects, students, and the public alike, the exhibition helps reveal how Siza thinks: the precision, the economy of line, the responsiveness to site, the relationship between void and mass, and the persistence of compositional motifs across decades.

This show also reinforces the importance of drawing—not as a mere preliminary stage—but as an active creative medium within architecture. Siza’s lifelong commitment to drawing stands as a reminder that the architect’s hand can still mediate the complexity of space, form, and context.

Moreover, presenting Siza’s work in Madrid opens up cross-cultural exploration: how Portuguese architecture dialogues with Iberian traditions, Mediterranean light, topography, and more universal themes of modernity. In situating Siza within an international festival, COAM and its collaborators aim to give greater visibility to a figure who, despite being more known in architectural circles than in general culture, has made an enduring mark on 20th- and 21st-century architecture.