Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza has completed an extension to the Monastery of Leça do Balio outside Porto, Portugal. 

The recently renovated monastery will now serve as the headquarters for the Livraria Lello Foundation, offering a space for “exhibitions that will champion literacy and critical thinking.”

Located near Siza’s hometown of Matosinhos, the scheme draws on the architect’s early childhood dreams of being a sculptor. Among the contributions by Siza to the extension is a stand-alone sculpture ‘Viandante’ which acts as a “poetic tribute to the pilgrim’s journey, offering a serene space for visitors to reflect and forge deeper connections.”

The extension, due to open on June 22, follows weeks after Siza's self-named Serralves Museum expansion in Porto opened to the public. The 45,000-square-foot expansion is the fifth building designed by Siza for the Serralves Foundation after the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (1999), Manoel de Oliveira Cinema House (2019), Gardeners’ House (2021), and the restored Serralves Art Déco Villa (2021).

“I was asked to design a building project that would highlight, that would mark the importance of Leça do Balio in the Way of Saint James,” Siza commented on the commission. “A new landmark in the building that occupies part of a geometric garden belonging to the monastery and has a connection with the church itself.”

Meanwhile, Álvaro Siza was also included in a roundup published by Archinect of four Pritzker Prize-winning architects who have recently designed watches, joining Frank Gehry, Eduardo Souto de Moura, and Rafael Moneo.