Building Topa 2. Rua 18 de Junho 4 / 6 + Rua Gonçalo Velho no. 15 - Architects Carlos Ramos & A. Bastos 1953-1954

A contemporary apartment block with commercial spaces on the ground floor and living on the first floor. Merging of two buildings into an urban block. Characteristic of a certain Portuguese architecture of the 1940s and 1950s, produced in peripheral and/or industrial locations. Architects Carlos Ramos & A. Bastos

The features of this typology: the great simplicity of the volumetric treatment, which is sometimes emphasized by the lack of sloping roofs and the purity of the higher contours (as is the case here); the clear distinction between floor and raised floor, which translates functional diversity (trade/housing) into material and composite diversity (in this example, the clear marking of the edge with a protruding flap and the stone cladding on the ground floor).

The openings (windows / doors) of different sizes and the use of recurring compositional mechanisms, such as the decomposition of the facade into multiple surfaces. By making these surfaces jump forward and fall back in depth and height (platibandas at different heights), the building gets a certain dynamics.