Architects: José Adrião Arquitetos
Area: 102 m²
Year: 2022
Photographs: Hugo Santos Silva
Lead Architect: José Adrião
Category: Restaurant
Phase 1 Leader: Carla Gonçalves
Collaborator: Tiago Mota, Ricardo Aboim Inglez, João Albuquerque Matos, Hugo Santos Silva, Ana Isabel Santos, Carolina Calmon
Phase 2 Leader: Carla Gonçalves
Direction And Oversight: Perfectus
Stability: ARA
Specialists: Pensamento Sustentável
City: Lisboa
Country: Portugal
José Adrião Arquitetos has completed the rehabilitation of a pre-Pombaline building in Lisbon’s Mouraria neighbourhood, transforming a former workshop into a restaurant that honors the site’s layered history. Located at the corner of Rua Marques de Ponte de Lima and Beco dos Três Engenhos, the structure revealed traces of its past through archaeological findings of milling equipment in the basement, linking it to the area’s historical identity as the Alley of the Three Mills. The intervention preserved the building’s existing proportions while extending the upper floor to accommodate new service areas and a covered terrace. The design reinterprets the building’s original spatial logic through minimal contemporary additions, maintaining a dialogue with its urban surroundings and architectural memory.
José Adrião Arquitetos approached the rehabilitation of the small pre-Pombaline building in Mouraria as both an act of preservation and reinterpretation. Once a flour mill, later a tavern, and eventually a workshop, the structure reflects the layered transformations typical of Lisbon’s historic fabric.
Archaeological excavations uncovered remnants of the original milling mechanisms in the basement, grounding the project’s narrative in the tangible traces of its past and giving new resonance to the name of the adjoining alley, Beco dos Três Engenhos Alley of the Three Mills.
The architectural intervention maintained the building’s modest scale while adapting it for contemporary use as a restaurant. The ground floor now houses the kitchen and a dining area that connects directly to the exterior, reinforcing its relationship with the surrounding urban setting.
The upper level was extended to introduce a covered terrace and supporting facilities, conceived as lightweight additions that respect the structure’s proportions and tectonic logic.
New window openings, designed without casements, frame fragments of nearby façades, creating a visual continuity between interior and exterior spaces. Through this restrained transformation, the project reactivates a forgotten corner of Mouraria while preserving the memory of its evolving craftsmanship and social life. The result is a quiet, precise intervention that bridges Lisbon’s historical character with present-day functionality, embodying the studio’s sensitivity toward architectural heritage and contextual integration.
Project Gallery
Project Location
Address: Lisboa, Portugal
The location specified is intended for general reference and may denote a city or country, but it does not identify a precise address.
