It was written by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma the expansion of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation GardenThis work is due to take place at the same time as the construction of the Praça de Espanha Urban Park. The project, entitled "A Park for the City"was presented on December 10 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Gulbenkian Building and Museum. It was chosen from 12 proposals of the ideas contest promoted.
The Gulbenkian Garden will be extended southwards from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's Modern Collection building. The latter will gain a new exhibition space of 700 square meters connected to the garden, its natural light, its water, its nature. It will be on the south façade of this building that two glazed ceramic canopies will be built, a white one on top and a wooden one underneath, covering around 1600 square meters.
The canopies are one of the most iconic elements in the project that Kengo Kuma prepared for the the former garden of Casa de Santa Gertrudes, from Maria Teresa Eugénio de Almeidathe widow of the creator of the Alentejo foundation of that name, who died in 2017. The land was acquired by the Gulbenkian Foundation in 2005, as Público explains.
The extension of the Gulbenkian garden, designed by architects António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles in the 1960s, should be ready in 2021. The "happy coincidences that often happen in life", pointed out Fernando Medina, Mayor of Lisbon, during the presentation, "They made sure that this project developed more or less simultaneously with the one that the council is carrying out for Praça de Espanha, which is more advanced, corresponding to the creation of a garden in Praça de Espanha of around 5 hectares, creating a new way of living the public space in this area of the city.".
