#BEING Bairro da Malagueira

Beyond the city wall, designed so as not to interfere with Évora’s architectonic profile, but still keeping a close proximity to the historic centre and weaving permanent links with it, Bairro da Malagueira, built on a 27-hectare former farm with 1200 residencies, is one of 1992 Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza Vieira’s most emblematic works and a master reference of the city of Évora. It is the result of Évora Municipality’s invitation to architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, shortly after the 25th April Revolution, to devise and design a set of affordable housing units capable of meeting the needs of a city that was then, as it is now, undergoing transformation. Malagueira is the ultimate expression of participatory architecture: a project that emerges from the people, from a thorough and active listening to future residents, who not only contributed their ideas, concerns and enthusiasm to the project, but also helped build it, thanks to the cooperative, at the ve