ARX

Ílhavo Municipal Library is housed in what remains of the Solar Visconde de Almeida, a manor house dating from the 17th/18th centuries that was later altered and demolished. Of the original building, only the main façade (southeast) and the Chapel survived, both in ruins. Nothing remained of the former coach house that once closed off the ensemble to the southwest, but what did survive were elements of a refined architecture, evident in the proportions of the design and the elegance of all the stonework. These are built traces that are increasingly rare in Ílhavo, which anchored the palace to its streets, and it was therefore decided to preserve and integrate them.

The building is located on the periphery of the present-day town, in an area of weak urban growth that is still highly fragmented and problematic. With this in mind, the aim was not merely to design a library but, above all, to articulate the diverse volumes of the context and to clarify and consolidate urban fragments that lacked any apparent sense of unity. The preliminary brief, which due to its scale could not be contained within the spaces of the manor house, set out the intention of building three distinct components: Library, Chapel and Youth Forum. As an anchoring point, within the boundaries of the former manor house and set against the palace façade, the administrative areas were grouped together, made up of spaces better suited to the rhythm of the existing openings, restoring the character of a building to what had become a mere decaying stage set.

There is, however, a clear recognition that this is a new architecture, existing in "symbiosis" with the pre-existing structures. The design of the rest of the building stems essentially from our understanding of its public and civic character, which led us to strengthen its urban "performance". In the design of the reading rooms and Youth Forum volumes, which form the part of the building "outside" the manor house, direct morphological relationships are established with the surroundings. In this way, the building acts within its context as a reconciling element, a kind of "closing piece" that incorporates the "whims" of its surroundings into its own physiognomy. It would never make sense in any other context. The chapel, despite having been stripped of its most important decorative elements, such as tiles, carved woodwork, tombstones and furniture, is restored in its spatial essence, preserving whatever evidence remains of a lost history.

The furniture has been redesigned and is unmistakably contemporary, as is the new altarpiece by Pedro Calapez, which restores the original typology and sense of polychromy. The intention is to revive worship in the chapel, the use it served until its closure following the demolition of the palace.