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.
