Oporto Metro

Metro do Porto
Office / Name of Architects
Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. / Eduardo Souto de Moura, Humberto Vieira

Colaboraters
Andr Campos, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Ricardo Tedim, Souto Moura - Arquitectos,
S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Eduardo Carrilho, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Joana Pinho,
Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Jos Carlos Mariano, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A.
(Collaborator (office)), Bernardo Duro, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Diogo Crespo, Souto
Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Manuel Pais Vieira, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator
(office)), Nuno Flores, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Adriano Pimenta, Souto Moura Arquitectos, S.A. (Coordination), Nuno Lopes, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Tiago Coelho,
Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Tiago Figueiredo, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A.
(Collaborator (office)), Eduardo Pereira, Souto Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Pedro Chimeno, Souto
Moura - Arquitectos, S.A. (Collaborator (office)), Soares da Costa Gabinete de Projectos (Collaborator (external))
City / Country
Porto, Portugal

Placement
Nominee

Programme
Government/Civic

Edition
2007

The Metro and the City

The surface light rail system glides smoothly over ground on two steel rails, making hardly any sound.
The laying of the track is dictated by a closed circuit elevation value system complying with strict rules that have no
subjective considerations.
The steel rails must be full embedded in the street pavement so that, in the vent of an emergency fire, service vehicles
can pass from one side of the track to the other. The material used ranges from granite cubes to bituminous
pavements or grass covering.
For acoustic reasons the rails are laid on a floating slab using steel components cushioned with rubber dampers.
The installation of the system meant that whole streets had to be destroyed and, as a result, their infrastructures also.
New sewage, rainwater, gas, electricity, telephone, cable TV, optic fibre cables and even oil pipe pipeline distribution
networks have to coexist with the Metro light rail system being built which is achieved with multi-transport pipelines
with access points every 20 metres.
But the problem of the surface metro does not exist only on the surface. There is also the sky to consider the
catenary and the lighting systems. These can be suspended from a central post or from two lateral posts.
When the street are too narrow the catenaries and lighting are suspended from cables that are stretched from one
building front to the other.
The problem is that such faades are either made of NUAGE glass or have a 7 cm-thick brick outer wall.
We work from the track outwards to the sides of the roads (the Metro track is always inflexible). Any space left over on
the street is given over to other vehicles and parking where possible, and pedestrian pavement until the stoops are
reached.
We can alternate materials and modify inclinations but the building stoops are sacred, it is like touching a stranger on
his shoulder.
From shoulder to shoulder we modify elevation values, pavements, textures, pathways, road kerbsides, kerbstones,
lamp-posts and trees. It is not that we want to alter the geography but Metro oblige.
When difficulties arise we speak to Transmetro or to Normetro, which then speak to the Metro, the town council, the
parish council, the residents, and the tradesmen.
After being approved, we being to see streets that intersect and widen into squares, plazas, roundabouts, superfluous
recesses, small courts, tree-lined plazas, parking on roadsides, and even boulevards Avenida da Repblica: Gaia /
Matosinhos.
Although this is not our vocation the Metro system builds places, nooks, joins cities, designs metropolises Gaia,
Porto, Matosinhos, Maia, Trofa, Vila do Conde, Pvoa de Varzim and Gondomar.
Cities do not change of their own free will or by political decree but with the emergence of systems that they need to
survive and develop.
It was thus with the Romans when at the crossroads of two routes they designed the Cardus and the Decomanus with
the Forum in the centre.
It was thus in the Middle Ages when the Forum was replaced by Cathedral Square, built with the stones of the
demolished temple.
It was thus in Baroque times with radiocentric axes connecting that Cathedral (now filled with gilt wood carvings) to the
city gates.
It was thus in neo-classical times when the gates were demolished or redesigned and the spaces where the roads
ended became squares flanked by convents.
It was thus in the 19th century with the railroad, when some convents became stations (So Bento).
It was thus in the 20th century with the surface light rail system (Matosinhos / Trindade).
It will be thus in the 21st century by which time the surface light rail system must be integrated into a planned system
(enough of improvisations) creating a new urban landscape that cannot be postponed.
The country is small and we are few, but I think we shall succeed.
Eduardo Souto de Moura

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Lus Ferreira Alves

metro02

Lus Ferreira Alves

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adriano pimenta

metro04

Lus Ferreira Alves

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Lus Ferreira Alves

metro06

Lus Ferreira Alves

metro07

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