The new building with 16 apartments of up to 50 square meters in the middle of Porto’s old town stands out – not only because of the old street façade made of natural stone, which is the only remnant of a long-decayed town house wrapped around its northwest façade. The real attraction is the subtly composed exposed concrete cube with its deeply cut loggias, which emerges from its […]

The new building with 16 apartments of up to 50 square meters in the middle of Porto’s old town stands out – and not just because of the old street façade made of natural stone, which is the only remnant of a long-decayed town house wrapped around its north-western façade. The real attraction is the subtly composed exposed concrete cube with its deeply recessed loggias that emerge from it.

Check in, put your suitcases down and then take a walk to the Torre dos Clérigos, just 300 meters away – if you start your stay at the hotel like this, you’re doing everything right. After all, there are no other public areas apart from the small lobby, and there is plenty of time to discover the apartment anyway. The 250-year-old Campanile is Portugal’s tallest church tower and offers a stunning panoramic view from its 75-metre-high viewing platform: Above a sea of rooftops, the endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean can be seen to the west; to the south, the Douro can be seen, with the warehouses of the port wine cellars crowded together on its banks; and to the east, the old town, which is listed as a World Heritage Site, lies at your feet, along with the starting point of the walk.

While the exposed concrete cube of the São Bento Residences appeared defiantly contemporary and perhaps even a little unapproachable on arrival in view of the historical surroundings, from a bird’s eye view it appears amazingly well integrated into the homogeneous urban fabric. This is due to the tiled roof, the fragmentary natural stone shell and, in particular, the uniformly narrow façade openings, the proportions of which can also be found in the old houses of Porto.

These openings are actually loggias cut two meters deep into the concrete and significantly shape the spatial atmosphere in the twelve apartments facing Avenida Dom Afonso Henriques. As a kind of negative form of the loggias, they appear from the inside as a sequence of niches of different widths, which – mostly used as a seating area – offer a wonderful place to retreat. In combination with the raw concrete floor, the large-scale glazing framed in cambal wood and the restrained white kitchen units, a purist space of remarkable clarity is created, whose sensual aura is unfortunately counteracted by over-expressive furnishings.

The framed photographs above the beds and the colorful, sometimes wildly patterned fabric covers, but also the richly grained wooden furniture (all brought into play by the owner) may fit well in a stylish hygge home – here they seem out of place. But this can be overlooked because there is no question that the half-life of the interior is significantly shorter than that of the grandiose architecture by Alexandra Coutinho and Nuno Grande from Pedra Líquida. What’s more, objects that have become too outdated in terms of colors and patterns, such as sofa cushions, can be stowed away in the cupboards if necessary. But instead, you should just relax and enjoy the beautiful view of the city and the services that can be booked, such as the romantic dinner.

Apartment hotel São Bento Residences, Avenida Dom Afonso Henriques 200, Porto
www.sbentoresidences.com

Take a look at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich with its rooms redesigned by Axel Vervoordt in 2020, or the Hotel Stue Berlin in Berlin’s embassy district.

The annual conference of the German Museums Association is the largest museum conference in Germany. From May 2 to 5, 2021, it will take place online on the topic of “Digital Collection Work: The Changing Museum” It has become a nice habit that the individual working groups also meet during the annual conference of the Museumsbund. Even in this year of the digitally networked […]

The annual conference of the German Museums Association is the largest museum conference in Germany. From May 2 to 5, 2021, it will take place online on the topic of “Digital Collection Work: The Museum in Transition”

It has become a nice habit that the individual working groups also meet during the Museum Association’s annual conference. Even in this year of digitally networked working at home, this has not changed. Only the word “digital” appears more frequently than ever before and the opportunities offered by digitization are being used and discussed particularly intensively. It is therefore hardly surprising that the spring conference of the German Museums Association is being held under the extremely timely heading: “Digital Collection Work: The Museum in Transition” and will be held entirely digitally.

From 2 May 2021, digital experts and museum employees from all over Germany will present their thoughts on museum work in the age of digitalization. Legal issues will be addressed as well as questions of networked research and opportunities to earn money with digital museum offerings. A questioning look at the topic of “Digitality as the ultima ratio in culture?” will conclude the three-day exchange of ideas, which will be followed by the working group meetings on the fourth day of the conference.

The speakers describe the topic of the conservation/restoration working group as follows: “We would like to discuss the benefits and limitations of the digital in conservation and look at the tools currently relevant to our fields of activity.”

In a compact, digital two-hour meeting, four areas in which digital work is possible will be presented. One lecture will deal with the mediation of restoration work using the example of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Bathers in Space” in an exhibition at the Saarland Museum. The following lectures will present “Digital tools for conservators in the museum”, “Digital courier support” and a “Handreichung Leihverkehr”. The organizing team does not claim to cover all areas that can work with digital possibilities in these two hours. The aim is to deal with topics “that the pandemic has brought to the fore”, according to the invitation.

Nobody has to miss out on meetings with speakers, networking, discussions and break-time talks during this conference from home. The Museumsbund promises digital services for all these conference-specific options.

Registration for the annual conference of the German Museums Association is possible at https://www.museumsbund.de/aktuelles/jahrestagung/. To take part “only” in the working group conference, you also need to register with the Museumsbund. An invitation to the free TEAMs meeting of the working group will then be sent out.