The difficult task of articulating history and innovation, tradition and ecology, landscape and building is what makes architecture an art of overcoming like no other.

Luís Rebelo de Andrade and his studio’s work is widely recognised and awarded, recent works such as the “Nacional de Reabilitação Urbana” award which was earned with the rehabilitation of the São José dos Carpinteiros church or the “Maria Tereza e Vasco Vilalva” award for the Loreto Church are the more recent examples. Rebelo de Andrade embraces a discrete yet sophisticated approach to his works and always finds a way to establish a relation between the present and the past. It is a valuable approach due it’s historical value but it’s also valuable as it allows us to look forward to the future safely and with strong foundations.

Building and living are both collective and individual processes – this paradox – intertwined with all Rebelo de Andrade’s works – can be solved when respect is introduced in the equation’s foreground by all actors. Respect for the past, for the landscape, the public space and history and its inevitable successor, the future and all the differences and needs of each piece in this equation. This is the only way to build buildings capable of go through endless generations, that is the way to establish an identity, that is the way of Rebelo de Andrade’s studio