Love under construction

What was originally planned as a 200-square-meter residence is now an imposing cultural building, included by the British newspaper The Times among the five most representative architectural works of the first decade of the 21st century. The story will not be unfamiliar to those who followed the construction of Casa da Música, as it was never kept secret: Rem Koolhaas, the project’s architect, was the first to recount it. After all, if transparency – understood as the visual continuity between interior and exterior – was the building’s defining characteristic, it made sense to be consistent and not conceal its distant origins. Once the construction workers rolled up their sleeves and got to work, four years would pass before Casa da Música finally opened its doors. During this process, the Dutch architect made it clear that he intended to leave the walls unfinished, reinforcing the concept of a house perpetually under construction. This decision required the implementation of extremely strict standards regarding concrete and plasterboard surfaces. One such rule was prohibiting the construction team from following the common practice of jotting notes or calculations on the walls. That, definitively, would not be allowed.

But the heart, as we know, has reasons that reason itself cannot comprehend, and one day, an inscription appeared nonetheless. It read [in Portuguese]: Isabel, you are a princess, my love. Perhaps emboldened by the audacity of this act or overwhelmed by the force of his feelings, the author couldn’t resist and transgressed again. At first, the messages were innocent and romantic; later, they became more explicit and passionate – but they were always declarations of love to an unknown Isabel, whom many speculated to be a member of the architecture office often present at the site. The author, even two decades later, remains unidentified. More than twenty declarations had to be erased, but one was preserved as a memento of that time. It can still be found on the 6th floor, near the elevators, as an eternal mark of a passion that became part of the building’s story.