Arrabida House, Setúbal Residence, Portugal Development, Portuguese Architecture, Images
Arrabida House in Setúbal
Modern Residence in Portugal – design by Souto de Moura architect
14 Apr 2017
Arrabida House
Architect: Souto de Moura
Location: Setúbal, Portugal
Arrabida House

The house is in the middle of the small Arrábida Range, about 35km between the cities of Palmela and Setubal, on a large plot in the middle of nature and a complicated topography. The client’s plot, Dr. Monteiro, is located on a hillside that offers views of a landscape with a huge variety of views.

These initial premises were joined by a complicated process with numerous difficulties, legal permits and difficult relationship with the client, which provoked that the house to take up almost five years and moved away from the concept proposed by Souto de Moura to solve it from simplicity.
In the words of the architect himself: “The project of the Arrábida house lasted almost four years … At this moment I forgot “the permanent crisis”, the personal difficulties of language definition, and continued with the project of execution. The problem was that the adequacy of any previous experience to this project was not compatible with the client, nor with the topography, nor “with myself”. “Simple” solutions were exhausted, and quickly became “simplistic”.

The “form” was becoming “formula”. The Edgar M...