Manuel Aires Mateus

Manuel Aires Mateus was born in Lisbon in 1963. He graduated from the Faculdade de Arquitetura de Lisboa in 1986 and collaborates with Francisco Aires Mateus, with both having founded the studio Aires Mateus in 1988.

In teaching, he has collaborated with several universities since 1986, such as the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the College of Architecture, Art and Planning of Cornell University, the Oslo Architecture School, the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana, and the School of Architecture of the University of Navarre in Pamplona. Since 1998, he is a professor of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa and, since 2001, of the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland.

The studio's work is present in several countries, being developed from its premises in Lisbon, Portugal. Many of the projects have been published in monographs, including El Croquis, Arquitectura Viva, GA, A+U, 2G, C3, DOMUS, and AMAG, among others.

Aires Mateus has participated in several exhibitions, with a regular presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2010, 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2021). The studio's work has always dealt with the role of memory and knowledge, with the relationship between the physical and the cultural world. The work seeks to reflect on every scale surrounding us, searching for the perennial state of shapes and materiality in the continuity of time.

In 2017, Manuel Aires Mateus was awarded the Prémio Pessoa, the most prestigious cultural award in Portugal in the field of arts and sciences [citation:5]. The jury described his architecture as "modern, abstract, and contemporary", while drawing from a collection of Portuguese vernacular forms and materials, which it integrates in an exemplary way [citation:5].