[PT]
"Foi em 1956 que a Câmara de Matosinhos abriu concurso para a construção de uma casa de chá na Praia da Boa Nova, junto ao farol e à pequena capela que aí existem. O projecto vencedor foi apresentado pelo gabinete do arquitecto Fernando Távora, sendo a direcção do mesmo entregue a um jovem arquitecto que iniciava então a sua carreira, Álvaro Siza Vieira. A versão final do projecto foi terminada em 1958 e a construção concluída em 1963, tornando-se a Casa de Chá da Boa Nova "(...) um dado qualitativamente novo, quer na obra de Álvaro Siza quer na arquitectura portuguesa (...)" (ALMEIDA, 1997, p. 238).
Edificada sobre os rochedos da Boa Nova, a dois metros do mar, a Casa de Chá da Boa Nova apresenta uma "obsessiva" relação com a paisagem e a topografia, "(...) numa minúcia que tenta deixar imaculadas as rochas, com a construção a contorcer-se, distender-se no sítio." (idem, ibidem).
O espaço exterior é composto por um conjunto de degraus, muros e pavimentos brancos integrados nas rochas, que se projectam em sentido ascendente até ao alpendre rebaixado que antecede a porta principal. No interior dispõem-se clarabóias e portas de vidro que, como "pictogramas", criam "(...) um espaço que foi concebido com uma forte relação interior/exterior, um lugar onde se avista, intencionalmente, uma envolvente específica, filtrada por aberturas minuciosamente estudadas para obter um determinado enquadramento e uma relação sensorial muito forte, com a envolvente." (MARTINS, 2009, p. 87).
Nesta obra emblemática, é evidente a influência de Alvar Aalto, nomeadamente dos edifícios da Câmara de Säynätsalo e da Maison Carrée, construídos pelo arquitecto finlandês em 1952 e 1959, respectivamente (idem, ibidem)."
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[EN]
"The Boa Nova Tea House was designed following a competition held in 1956 by the city council and won by Portuguese architect Fernando Tavora. After choosing a site on the cliffs of the Matosinhos seashore, Tavora turned the project over to his collaborator, Alvaro Siza. One of Siza’s first built projects, it is significant that the restaurant is not far from the town of Matosinhos where the architect grew up, and set in a landscape that he was intimately familiar with. It was still possible in Portugal of the 1960s to make architecture by working in close contact with the site, and this work, much like the Leça Swimming Pools of 1966, is about ‘building the landscape’ of this marginal zone on the Atlantic – through a careful analysis of the weather and tides, existing plant life and rock formations, and the relationship to the avenue and city behind.
Removed from the main road by some 300 meters, the building is accessed from a nearby parking lot through a system of platforms and stairs, eventually leading to an entry sheltered by a very low roof and massive boulders characteristic to the site. This architectural promenade, a sinuous path clad in white stone and lined by painted concrete walls, presents several dramatic perspectives of the landscape as it alternatively hides and reveals the sea and the horizon line.
The restaurant’s west-facing dining room and tea room are set just above the rocks, and joined by a double-height atrium and stair, with the entrance being on a higher level. The kitchen, storage and employee areas are half-sunken in the back of the building, marked only by a narrow window and a mast-like chimney clad in colored tiles. Forming a butterfly in plan, the two primary spaces open gently around the sea cove, their exterior walls following the natural topography of the site. The tea room has large windows above an exposed concrete base, while the dining room is fully glassed, leading to an outdoor plateau. In both rooms, the window frames can slide down beneath the floor, leaving the long projecting roof eaves in continuum with the ceiling. This creates an amazing effect in the summer, when it is possible to walk out from the dining room directly to the sea, as the building seems to disappear.
As in other early works of the architect, a diversity of materials come into play: white-plastered masonry walls, exposed concrete pillars on the west-facing facade, and an abundant use of the red African ‘Afizelia’ wood in the cladding of the walls, ceilings, frames and furniture. On the outside the facing of the projecting eaves is made with long wood boards trimmed with copper flashing. The roof is a concrete slab covered by Roman red terracotta tiles and by a wood suspended ceiling.
Legend has it that a few years ago, during a heavy storm, the sea came crashing through both rooms of the tea house, taking with it furniture and destroying most of the interior. The Boa Nova was fully restored in 1991, with all of its original characteristics being preserved."
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