Portugal

Travel / 8 Nov 2018

A former farm in Alentejo has been transformed into a boutique art retreat

Portugal’s rural Alentejo region, best known for its wide plains punctuated with whitewashed medieval hilltop towns and olive groves, is now home to a unique, art-filled boutique hotel, Dá Licenca. It comes courtesy of Victor Borges and Franck Laigneau, who...

Travel / 24 Mar 2018

The Algarve’s Magnolia Hotel is a take on the glory days of the 1950s American motel

With its neon signs and pastel pinks, its pop-yellow parasols and turquoise tones, the newly arrived Magnolia Hotel adds more than a splash of colour to the umbrella pine and white-washed landscape of Quinta do Lago. Interiors by London’s...

Art / 25 May 2016

WindArt project: Joana Vasconcelos and Vhils apply themselves to the elements

Two weeks after Portugal made global news for running solely off renewables for a remarkable 107 hours, the country unveils a ‘tribute to renewable energy’ – vying for the status of tallest contemporary art project in the world. In a...

Design / 18 May 2016

Mixing it up: O CÉU is a new Eurocentric modern furniture brand

In an unusual design collaboration that melds the aesthetics of German designer Matthias Lehner with the manufacturing of Portuguese brand Gual, O CÉU is a new furniture company, launched at Salone del Mobile, that embraces all the best parts of...

Architecture / 29 Oct 2015

Fonte Boa House is a minimalist rural idyll in central Portugal

Bound by the picturesque Jerumelo, Sicó and Espinhal mountains, the green Rabaçal valley in central Portugal easily evokes romantic notions of a rural idyll. It comes as no surprise that the striking new 180 sq m single family home by Coimbra...

Architecture / 18 Mar 2015

PROD Architecture + Design strikes a natural balance in Portugal with a home of four parts

This elegant family of structures, located on the outskirts of Penafiel, just a few kilometres east of Porto, is House of Four, PROD Architecture + Design’s latest residential addition to the town’s growing portfolio of contemporary architecture. As its name...

Travel / 17 Nov 2014

Ecorkhotel

Set within 12 acres of rolling oak forest and ancient olive groves, this sustainable eco resort was designed by architect José Carlos Cruz to mimic a traditional whitewashed Alentejo village in a cool, contemporary style. The hotel and spa, some...

Design / 12 Nov 2013

10 designers re-think cork for ’Metamorphosis’ at Lisbon’s Experimenta Design Biennale

You wouldn’t expect a boundary-pushing design exhibition to revolve around a material as pedestrian as cork. But Metamorphosis, on show at the Jerónimos monastery, near Belém west of Lisbon, is remarkably cutting-edge. The central show at Lisbon’s Experimenta Biennale (EXD...

Architecture / 2 Oct 2013

Future Architecture Thinking designs the flame-red House of the Arts in Miranda do Corvo

The Portuguese architectural scene is still making its way through Southern Europe’s ongoing recession. Major projects have been placed on hold, or even stuttered to a near standstill, casting an air of gloom over a country that sees architecture as...

Architecture / 18 Sep 2013

A tour of ’Close, Closer’: the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale

Putting together an architecture festival devoid of buildings might seem a daunting prospect for any organiser. Yet this is exactly what this year’s Architecture Triennale in Lisbon, entitled Close, Closer, is bravely offering. Divisive as it may be, leaving...

Architecture / 17 Jun 2013

The first of 12 Solo Houses is completed in Spain

Chilean practice Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects has just completed the first house in an ambitious residential development in Spain. The Solo Pezo property is part of the Solo Houses project in Matarraña, south of Barcelona, which French developer Christian Bourdais...

Travel / 6 Nov 2012

November travel news: editor’s picks

...