Detail of the project ed. 2024

jaz­i­­go-per­­ma­­nence-of-mem­o­ry / Portugal

Design­er	Paulo Durão
Loca­tion	Golegã
Nation	Por­tu­gal
Design Team	Paulo Durão Inês Belmarço Inês Oliveira João Dias João Antunes Mar­ta Santos
Year	2020
Pho­to credits	pho­to 1 exter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3730_emontenegro pho­to 2 exter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3727_emontenegro pho­to 3 exter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3832_emontenegro pho­to 4 exter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3749_emontenegro pho­to 5 exter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3862_emontenegro pho­to 1 inter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3843_emontenegro pho­to 2 inter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3845_emontenegro pho­to 3 inter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3695_emontenegro pho­to 4 inter­nal — 2020_Jazigo_Phyd-3827_emontenegro pho­to 5 inter­nal — DSC_2990_A3_phydarquitectura

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

While exer­cis­ing the prac­tice of archi­tec­ture, we often resort to mem­o­ries we’ve lived through. Mem­o­ries that, when con­front­ed with cer­tain cir­cum­stances, help build our imag­i­na­tion in a way that results in the com­po­si­tion of a cer­tain spa­tial­i­ty of form and matter.
The design­ing of a tomb is a sin­gu­lar propo­si­tion, con­tain­ing in itself a glos­sary of images refer­ring to the mem­o­ry of life and to the cre­ation of a space that, by its own nature, is able to bear the weight of that mem­o­ry. Being born, grow­ing up, and dying; the lin­ear sequence of human time. Season’s changes and the cadence of nat­ur­al events, these are the cycles regard­less of which this space must remain. Part of eter­nal time in its immo­bil­i­ty, the tomb, con­tain­ing life’s mem­o­ry, is its permanence.
The chal­lenge belies the ques­tion: what does it mean to crys­tal­lize a mem­o­ry in time, to remain? In his­to­ry, funer­al archi­tec­ture has tak­en on a promi­nent role since antiq­ui­ty, a fact to which the enig­ma of death will cer­tain­ly not be alien. How­ev­er, despite the fas­ci­na­tion that meta­physics may have in archi­tec­ture, the con­crete reflec­tions of the act of design­ing are alto­geth­er more prosaic.
The project begins with a block of lioz stone mea­sur­ing 3x2x1,20m, from which 87 pieces are indi­vid­u­al­ly designed. The entire con­struc­tion sys­tem is devel­oped, like a puz­zle, from these pieces. Keep­ing in mind the goal of obtain­ing max­i­mum effi­cien­cy, the system’s pre­ci­sion is down to the metic­u­lous design­ing of each fit­ting, notch and joint, with rig­or­ous mea­sure­ments and care­ful­ly thought-out transitions.
The dis­cern­ing use of avail­able mat­ter is what begets the final result: the stone that, in a way, is breathed into life by pass­ing from block to human form. An alter­na­tion of form that comes to rest through­out the ages in a suc­ces­sive release of ero­sion and wear.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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