Álvaro Siza

A selection of books to accompany the exhibition The fortune of the city is that it has never been perfect in our main galleries, from 21 May 2026 to 10 January 2027.

How can a city transform without destroying what exists? How can acknowledging time and history positively influence neighbourhood planning? How do citizens participate in this process? And how do architecture and urban planning support each other in designing a harmonious city across various scales, rather than just a series of buildings inserted one after the other? These and more questions continue to be central to city building. While many think digital solutions and data points—like “smart cities”—are the answer to such issues, the city itself provides a rich site for continued exploration: its existing physical, historical, and social fabrics, topographic setting, textures, and faces.

The fortune of the city is that it has never been perfect explores his urban projects through his experiential way of understanding a place, its shape, its embodied history, and its life. In considering these aspects across his projects, Siza seeks to determine the right scale of intervening and building within existing frameworks, rather than only designing single buildings.