Apartments 'The White Elephant' - Avenida 5 de Outubro

Apartments 'The White Elephant' - 1987

Perhaps at first glance the 'White Elephant' looks like a 'Brutalist' building complex, consisting of 12 floors at the front with the Milenium Bank on the ground floor and a setback on the top floor.

It is a gigantic building block where the continuous shell-shaped white concrete balconies, with glass and planters mainly determine the dominant image. The continuous balconies are sharply intersected with building-high deepblue & white staggered tile panels.

Exept by tile pannels, the balconies are intersected by an aluminum deep blue shade grille in fine vertical profiles. On the ground floor there is a repeating column structure with arches in between that forms a covered arcade together with the recessed glass facade.

The facade around the corner of the main building has a high tile tableau, but now with horizontal recesses. Further around the corner the building continues with apartments and offices in blocks of varying heights and on the ground floor commercial spaces/shops with arcade.

The alternation between building heights, balcony shapes, intersections with tile scenes and the urban accent in the height of the building, at the end of Rua da Alameda, is surprising. Walk all the way around it and be surprised by this colossal building block, which was not only one of the last projects of Manuel Gomes da Costa but but also one of his most favorite.