Archives of Macau

About

Located at Avenida do Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida, facing Tap Seac Square, the Macau Archive is housed in a neoclassical building integrated on a larger group of similar buildings along the same street. From the outside, it remains a neoclassical building but from the inside is a radical contemporary building, an obsessive exploration of a metal grid as a space defining strategy, covering the floors, walls, ceilings, stairs, furniture and fixture details. In the installation of the Historical Archive on a pre-existing building, Manuel Vicente engaged on an exercise of architectural freedom and architectural preservation, and achieved both objectives creating an unusual symbiosis.