The Saint Anthony’s Church and São Bartolomeu Social Centre project was realised on a plot of land in the Bairro dos Assentos — an area on the outskirts of Portalegre, built in the 1970s, poorly structured from an architectural point of view, but where a very significant percentage of the population lives. On this piece of land with about eight meters of height diferential, several scattered outcrops of quartzite — a type of metamorphic rock whose predominance marks the city’s landscape — were found. The strategy defined by the architect was to excavate the plot’s slope, exposing the rock and highlighting it as the space’s protagonist. The setting then becomes a scenographic device, forming a continuum that takes us from the street to the rock. From the main façade, it becomes possible to visually tour the entire building — passing through the entrance portico, the churchyard and the worship space, and ending at the rock that is revealed behind the altar — as if it were a kind of monumental Baroque relief in gilded carving, in a contained exterior space.

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Arquitectura,Carrilho da Graça,Igreja de Portalegre,Igreja de Santo António