AAM president believes gov’t wants to use former headquarters as cultural venue

The president of the Board of Directors of the Architects Association of Macau (AAM), Christine Choi, believes that the government plans to use the venue that has served as AAM headquarters for the past 25 years as a cultural venue.

Choi’s comments came last Saturday at the sidelines of the AAM Open House event, which was also the closing event of the association, in the venue located at the 2-story villa at the Avenida do Coronel Mesquita in Macau.

In an interview with the public broadcaster TDM, Choi also said that the association had already selected a new space to move into but refused to reveal the location until the place was “properly set,” she said.

Although she noted with sadness that the AAM will leave the premises by the middle of this month, she thanked the government for its support in providing this venue for AAM activities over the past 25 years.

Choi said that the association leaving this venue comes as part of a government development plan that aims to revitalize and use the architectural complex (comprised of four villas) for cultural and tourism purposes.

In a different interview, the president of the Fellow Members Council, Architect Carlos Marreiros also said that the government’s new project for the area will affect the AAM and all other associations and groups that are, or were, using the other villas, noting that the other groups had also been notified to vacate the venues.

For Marreiros, it is important that the government preserves the characteristics of the project authored by the Portuguese Architect Raul Chorão Ramalho who worked in Macau in the 1960s.

Marreiros noted that the villa, formerly the residence of Macau Civil Servants, was the last of Chorão Ramalho’s projects in Macau, the same architect that designed the original project of the “Escola Comercial Pedro Nolasco,” which is currently a Macau Portuguese School.

Marreiros hopes that the government will use the space as an “architectural complex” and for “cultural hubs” given the importance of the building and its elements of the brutalist movement, an architectural movement that emerged in the mid-20th century and that is characterized by raw, exposed concrete structures and emphasis on functionality. The term “brutalism” is derived from the French word “béton brut,” meaning “raw concrete,” which reflects the movement’s focus on showcasing the material in its unadorned form.

Brutalist architecture gained popularity in the 1950s and peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. It was influenced by the modernist principles of Le Corbusier, particularly his use of concrete in buildings such as the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France. Architects such as Le Corbusier, Paul Rudolph, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Marcel Breuer played significant roles in shaping the movement.

At the farewell to the venue, the AAM presented an exhibition of photography from Francisco Ricarte that depicts details and spaces of the house, titled “A Sentimental Photographic Journey,” as well as a talk by Marreiros about the Architectural Legacy of Master Raul Chorão Ramalho in Macau, among others.