From memory:

The project of the Contemplative Tower in Monsaraz is the result of an investigation about memory as an operative tool for architecture. The Tower is the element that brings action; a ‘space-between’ user and landscape. It is through this built element that the user places himself in relation to what surrounds him, thereby becoming part of a whole universe

Monsaraz is characterized by its privileged location and was once an important military defense point.\r\nOften associated with its function of defense, we all have in mind a tower as a space of protection, enclosure, introversion. \r\nThe intervention allows us to reflect on the relationship between the human being and landscape as part of the same universe. We are involved by the Alqueva Lake and the scarp where the wall of the town is drawn, making a descending path towards the tower, unlike the access to the interior of the wall of Monsaraz. In this sense, an ascending/descending tension is established between the two most important elements of the composition: Monsaraz and the Alqueva. The access, in its natural state, allows us to submerge into the landscape. The tower is reduced to its essence, not being more than what it effectively is: a massive and abstract element in the landscape. The tower will be the intermediary for the action to take place, and this is its true function. Arriving at the place we do not find the entrance immediately. We move among the different possible framings, framing, ourselves, the Tower over the landscape through its appropriation. The access to the tower is actually made through the Hermitage of São Lázaro. This element is left in ruin, just as we found it, in an allusion to the signs of time. Inside the hermitage, we stand between massive walls, with our feet on the stone, between earth and vegetation; only the sky opens up above us. We descend the stairs and rotate in a movement that leads us on a journey, in a big gesture, between the hermitage and the tower. The intervention is of excavation on this mass of clay soil. The spaces are excavated creating distinct moments of tension. It is a journey of discovery, introspection, and reflection. After a narrowing that almost doesn't let us breathe, in a moment of total introversion: the landscape; total opening over Alqueva.\r\nThe tower is an analogy to life itself: there are sometimes moments of greater difficulty, translated into the narrowing of the tower, but there is also the overcoming of these adversities