On my last night in Portugal I had booked a hotel in Lisbon, near the airport, just South of Vasco da Gama Bridge. This area is known as Parque das Nações (newly created district, 2012) and its a vastly different area of Lisbon. In this Northeast area along the Tagus River, you can see the massive bridge (longest bridge in Europe). There is also a plethora of venues for music, art, and culture. 

This is the setting we find Alvaro Siza's "Pavilion of Portugal". In some sense this is New Lisbon, in part a product of the 98' World Expo. The Pavilion itself is quite unique, its design elements have been described with an "enormous and impossibly thin concrete canopy, draped effortlessly between two mighty porticoes." This is an accurate description. My picture partly captures this, but not perfectly. This public venue seems well-used as a musical and cultural space. As I visited the Pavilion, workers were preparing for a large concert. 

The setting is excellent, the nearby esplanade on the water and museums all made a fine area to walk. For any architectural enthusiast, this site and other works by Alvaro Siza should be interesting. A living modernist architect of whom's work spans seven decades, perhaps this can be seen as exceptional?