VENICE.- “Álvaro Siza. Viagem sem Programa” is the title of the collateral event that Fondazione Querini Stampalia is hosting from August 27 to November 11, 2012 (admission is free of charge).

The exhibition is exclusively dedicated to the most personal aspects of the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza – one the leading players in the international design scene – who was recently awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

Organized by the Medicina Mentis cultural association in cooperation with Fondazione Querini Stampalia, the exhibition is the result of the many meetings the two curators – Greta Ruffino and Raul Betti – had with Álvaro Siza in his studio in Porto. The 53 works on show were developed from travel notes and sketches and were personally selected by the artist for the event. They narrate his work in architecture as well as his concept of life.

In addition to shedding light on Siza’s extraordinary eidetic memory, the exhibition underscores the power of the drawings (chiefly portraits) created during his youth, his many trips abroad for work purposes, recent dinner parties with friends and moments “free from the burden of work” populated with memoirs, views and ironical stances accumulated with the passing of time. They all contribute to giving form to his way of living and conceiving life.

“The exhibition – explain the curators – explores the qualities of human nature and design culture alike, with a view to revealing the indissoluble link between these two factors and the Portuguese artist’s most intimate sentiments. It is thus an emotive itinerary that expresses his acute capacity for observation, which he then translates into tangible fragments of reality”.

The work (fifty-three 1/1 prints authenticated by the author that form a unique, previously unseen collection), is displayed in a sequential order. A succession of prospects, dreams, memories, and the faces of unknown persons and friends encountered in that extraordinary “Journey without a plan”, which is life itself.

The exhibition also has a video projection area of the interview made in Portugal in August 2011 where Álvaro Siza talks about his personal involvement with design, his childhood, the beginning of his career, his most important encounters and closest friendships, as well as a glimpse into amazing new projects.