An Interview with Álvaro Siza

In Portugal, where it seems that everyone you meet speaks knowledgeably and proudly of his work, he is called by his full name, Álvaro Siza Vieira. He is, of course, that country’s most famous architect and, in keeping with the crossing of local and global that has marked his entire career, he is also internationally renowned and a recipient of, among many other awards, the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Mosaic sought out Siza because he is both architect and artist: according to what he says, and what he builds, literature and architecture belong inseparably together. The following interview took place on 17 May 2002 in Siza’s Rúa Do Aleixo office in Oporto, Portugal and originally appeared in Mosaic’s special issue Literature and Architecture (35.4, December 2002).