Álvaro Siza in Italia. IL Grand Tour 1976-2016

The lengthy and deeply felt relationship between this Portuguese maestro and Italy is the subject of a beautiful exhibition dedicated to him by the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome. We offer our readers Siza’s highly personal account of his love for Italy, especially his two favourite cities, Naples and Venice.

- Álvaro Siza

There are two cities in Italy that move me particularly every time I visit them, even after many times: Venice and Naples. There are of course others of incredible beauty, but in these two everything I see and hear reaches the golden clarity of my dreams, I experience the unusual sensation of living in a dream.

For a year now, for work reasons, I have been coming to Naples regularly, a city I know as well or as little as any traveller may. In 1986, I was invited by Professor Vittorio Gregotti to design a proposal for Caserta together with other architects. In 1986, on the invitation of Professor Uberto Siola, at the time the head of the Faculty of Architecture of this university, I carried out an urban study for the Pedino quarter and, in the same year, a programme for Monterusciello and the Campi Flegrei. In 1998, invited by Professor Benedetto Gravagnuolo, I held a conference at the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, presenting the book