Casa 1923

I was born in Faro, Algarve, but grew up about 15 minutes outside the city. Whenever we visited the city, we would stop for a snack at a café called Cindarella (although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it anymore), and I always enjoyed strolling along Rua de Santo António, with its unmistakable scent of croissants from Pastelaria Gardy. Despite its rich architectural history, the city remains relatively low-key and isn't on many tourists' radars. So, it was a delight to see another beautiful project emerge in this underrated Portuguese city – Casa 1923. Interestingly, the project shares the same founders as Casa Modesta (one of the first places we discovered for Taste of Portugal).

The doors of Casa 1923 are an invitation to the past and a magical, ancestral, and bourgeois atmosphere of the 1920s. The building from 1923 isa unique example of Art Nouveau in the city of Faro. The current project aims to rehabilitate, restore, and expand the existing structure through thorough rehabilitation efforts, simultaneously preserving the exterior and interior while utilizing the roof area. This proposal also intends to continue the concept of rescuing an authenticity almost lost at an architectural and historical level, contributing to a sustainable development, based on contemporary logic, using traditional materials. The objective of this project is not a zeal taken to the extreme of what it was, but rather, starting from the past (history of Horta do Colégio dos Jesuítas and new Bairro do Colégio – Architecture Art Nova/ Déco), to recreate, redefine and innovate, adapting to new needs and circumstances.

The starting step was to keep the volumetry of the building, the relationship between the spaces of the house, as well as the relevant elements of the Art Nouveau architecture and materials: the water well, the tiles with floral and geometric motifs, the use of stone and wood: in the ceilings, interior and exterior doors and windows, the stained glass, the worked metalwork with an organic design and brass elements, the marseille tile, hydraulic tile, the plastered or whitewashed walls; the pink veined marble, the scaiola on walls and carpentry, the cork as insulation, the brass hardware. Versatility is mirrored in different environments that balance each other out. On the ground floor, combines the nuclear home (kitchen, living and dining rooms), along with 2 studios (for work or live). These studios could be independent or as a single space in the T1 modality (since one of the units is equipped with a kitchenette). On the upper floor, the 2 accommodation units with contemporary features communicate with a central unit equipped with a kitchen and multipurpose room, which allows for the same programmatic versatility as it can function as a T2. The house is hybrid, also mirrored on the outside by the organic vegetable garden, edible garden, an water well on the ground floor and tank on the upper floor where the bucolic green invades the space and sustainability is no longer a concept to become a way of life.

We can’t wait to stay at this beautiful place one day in the near future.

See you soon in Faro!

More: casa1923.pt

Pictures © Casa 1923