two red pyramids by the atlantic
You come in through a garden with pine trees and the building lands before you reach the door. Eduardo Souto de Moura designed the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego in red concrete, with two pyramidal towers rising above the treetops. It isn't a neutral or discreet language: the building is already a statement.
Inside, the permanent collection brings together decades of Paula Rego's work, from the more experimental years to the figurative series that made her impossible to ignore. The canvases are large, the subjects are heavy, the figures look back at you. It isn't art for decorating walls.
The geographical context carries weight here. Cascais was for a long time Rego's refuge (and her husband's, the painter Victor Willing), and the relationship with the western Portuguese coast is stitched into several works. You see Cascais differently when you leave.
an architecture prize with work inside
Souto de Moura won the Prémio Secil de Arquitectura 2010 for this building, and the distinction makes sense when you get how the interior spaces work with natural light. The rooms aren't neutral: they have height, direction, intention. The architecture doesn't compete with the work, but it doesn't disappear either.
The museum opened in 2009 with Paula Rego herself there, and has kept up since then a programme of temporary exhibitions alongside the permanent collection. Two a year, usually with artists in dialogue with the painter's world.
come prepared for
- the red pyramids seen from the garden before you go in
- human figures that unsettle you, on purpose
- the link between Rego's work and the Cascais coast taking shape in your head
- spaces with high ceilings that shift the rhythm of the visit
