The ceiling of four and a half meters forced, and still today obliges, to some gymnastics. The most literal is the one with which Manuel Aires Mateus surprises us on a guided tour of the house. As he shows the library shelves, attached to the wall, he jumps onto the table to come up with a book while naturally saying, “the furniture was also designed with this in mind.”
When he is on the ground, he is one of the most recognized Portuguese architects, Pessoa prize in 2017 and author of dozens of works related to culture, or individuals. As it could not fail to be, the house where he lives, next to the Sé of Lisbon, was designed by him in a four-handed work, this time not with his brother Francisco, with whom he has signed several projects in the atelier Aires Mateus, but with his wife Sofia, also an architect. “It was the first and only project we’ve done to date, because we don’t usually work together.”