Paulo Freitas e Maria João Marques Arquitectos . photos: © Luis Ferreira Alves . + divisare
São Martinho de Tibães Monastery, located in Braga, Portugal, former “chief House” of Portugal and Brasil Benedictine Congregation, was bought by the Portuguese State in 1986. Since then the complex underwent an integrated operation of restoration, recovery and rehabilitation with aim of endowing the SMTM with a global framework that integrates the whole complex and gives it back it to the community.
The project for the recovery and rehabilitation of the Noviciate, South Wing and the Refectory Cloister, comprises the old refectory cloister, destroyed by a huge fire in the end of the 19th century, the noviciate, the hospice and part of the South wing where we can find the library, the kitchen and ancillary spaces. The aim of the project is the recovery and renewal of a significant part of the spaces to be integrated in the monastery’s public areas (the cemetery’s cloister, kitchens and ancillary spaces); the installation of an information centre on monastic orders and historical gardens on the upper level of the South wing, and the re-installation of a religious community in the old noviciate, which will run a small guest-house and a restaurant in the old hospice.
A significant part of the existing architectural structure, whose spaces are unchanged, was recovered and rehabilitated, a new body was constructed, underground, under the refectory cloister, with access from the presbitery grounds, an old connection between the library corridor and the cemetery’s wing was reinstated, new floors, partition walls, roofs and all the infraestructures needed for its operation were constructed.
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