The work of the architects at Aires Mateus clearly shows contemporaneity - in its complexity and contradiction - a difficult condition to express in the realm of architecture. The extent of the work that they've been developing for many years confirms this. Their proposals develop a language with a strong universal impact. From this universality emerges an adaptation to the territory rooted in a clear Portuguese tradition. One finds in the interpretation of the work of Aires Mateus architects an appetite - almost a desire - for a cinematographic appropriation: by the invention of a place; by the confrontation between body and matter; for the clarity of games of shadow; for the search of a silence of its own. The matter is found in reverse.