Pontoatelier builds three freestanding rooms in Matosinhos to house the Lucio Costa Archive

Lucio Costa Archive exhibition by Pontoatelier at Casa da Arquitectura

The exhibition Lucio Costa Archive, at Casa da Arquitectura in Matosinhos, Portugal, draws on a deeply personal collection. Together, drawings, photographs, letters, films and small records of everyday life reveal the architect and urban planner, and also the man himself.

Because the archive is intimate and fragmented, it differs from a conventional architecture exhibition. Pontoatelier, the Madeira-based studio behind the exhibition design, therefore took this as its starting point. Rather than simply display documents, the design builds spaces where they can be housed and inhabited.

Entrance to the Lucio Costa Archive exhibition at Casa da Arquitectura — Photo: Francisco Ascensão

Rigour and informality

From the outset, two principles guide the design of the Lucio Costa Archive: rigour and informality. As a result, the precision of drawing and geometry sits alongside the informality of everyday life, which brings a sense of domesticity, lightness and the Brazilian spirit.

Moreover, the intervention stands as an autonomous architecture. For this reason, every element is freestanding and never touches the existing walls. In this way, it works as an architecture within another architecture, related to the hall but not dependent on it. Ultimately, the result is a space to wander through, discover, inhabit and rest.

Suspended panels above exhibition tables in the hall — Image: Francisco Ascensão

Freestanding volumes of the Lucio Costa Archive under the timber roof — Credit: Francisco Ascensão

Three movements in one hall

In addition, three built interventions punctuate the hall of the Lucio Costa Archive, like a composition in three movements that echoes Costa’s geometry and spatial thinking.

First, a triangular dark room shows the films made for the exhibition. Visitors enter one at a time through a narrow vertex; then the room widens as they move forward.

Triangular film room of the Lucio Costa Archive — Photo: Francisco Ascensão

Narrow vertex entrance of the triangular room — Image: Francisco Ascensão

Inside the triangular film room — Credit: Pontoatelier

Visitors watching films in the triangular room — Photo: Pontoatelier

Projection room with a long bench — Image: Gonçalo Gomes

Next, at the centre of the hall, a square volume sits rotated against the geometry of the existing building. Above all, it holds the original drawings of Brasília’s Pilot Plan, the most intense moment of the exhibition. As a result, the generous height of the hall gives the drawings a historical, spatial and symbolic weight.

Rotated square volume at the centre of the hall — Credit: Francisco Ascensão

Opening into the square volume — Photo: Francisco Ascensão

Original drawings of the Brasília Pilot Plan in the dark central room — Image: Francisco Ascensão

Display table under the tall central space — Credit: Francisco Ascensão

Visitors looking at the Pilot Plan drawings — Photo: Pontoatelier

Finally, at the far end, a hexagonal metal structure carries suspended hammocks. In particular, they recall Riposatevi, the installation Lucio Costa designed for the 1964 Milan Triennale. Thus, the route ends with an invitation to leisure, pause and contemplation, and the visitor becomes an inhabitant of the space rather than an observer.

Hexagonal metal structure with suspended hammocks — Image: Francisco Ascensão

Hammocks recalling Riposatevi — Credit: Francisco Ascensão

Visitors resting in the hammocks at the end of the Lucio Costa Archive — Photo: Pontoatelier

Open galleries between the rooms

Between these three moments, two large open galleries hold the rest of the Lucio Costa Archive. For example, original documents lie flat on exhibition tables, while photographs, drawings and reproductions hang on suspended vertical structures. Since the layout is informal, visitors can take different routes without being pushed toward a single reading.

Suspended panel beside a timber volume — Credit: Francisco Ascensão

Freestanding walls set apart from the existing hall — Photo: Francisco Ascensão

Gallery tables and suspended reproductions — Image: Francisco Ascensão

Lucio Costa Archive documents laid out on exhibition tables — Credit: Gonçalo Gomes

Visitors in an open gallery of the Lucio Costa Archive — Photo: Pontoatelier

A triangular matrix

The whole intervention grows from a triangular geometric matrix that unfolds into rotated squares, hexagons, structures and tensions. Indeed, this geometry runs through the architectural world of Lucio Costa.

In the end, Pontoatelier wanted the Lucio Costa Archive to reflect Costa’s own view of architecture: a space where rigour does not exclude spontaneity, where monumentality lives with intimacy, and where architecture comes closer to life. For more on Brazilian modernism, read about Oscar Niemeyer and the Palazzo Mondadori.

Model

Model of the triangular room — Photo: Miguel Carvalho

Model of the rotated square volume — Image: Miguel Carvalho

Overhead view of the exhibition model — Credit: Miguel Carvalho

Model view along the hall — Photo: Miguel Carvalho

Drawings

Plan of the Lucio Costa Archive exhibition — Plan

Section of the exhibition hall — Section

Axonometric drawing of the exhibition design — Axonometry

Project Credits

Project: Lucio Costa: Archive
Project type: Exhibition design
Location: Casa da Arquitectura, Matosinhos, Portugal
Completion: 2026
Commission: Casa da Arquitectura
Architecture: Pontoatelier / @pontoatelier
Lead architects: Ana Pedro Ferreira, Pedro Maria Ribeiro
Collaborators: José Palma, Miguel Carvalho
Curator: Ana Vaz Milheiro
Graphic design: Vivoeusébio
Photography: Francisco Ascensão, Gonçalo Gomes, Pontoatelier
Model photos: Miguel Carvalho
Drawings: Pontoatelier