Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira, better known as Álvaro Siza, is a Portuguese architect.
He has been awarded numerous prizes and honors including the Gold Medal for Architecture in 1988, the Pritzker Prize in 1992, the Imperial Prize in 1998, the Wolf Prize for the Arts in 2001, the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in 2009 and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2012.
He was born in 1933 in Matosinhos, a city on the Atlantic Ocean a few kilometers from Porto. Since 1945 he has studied at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Porto where he graduated in 1955. Since 1955 he has collaborated in Fernando Tavora's studio. At the end of the 1950s he opened his own studio and designed the Casa de Chá da Boa Nova in Leça da Palmeira. From the middle of the following decade he became a university professor in many international universities, which he then left to dedicate himself solely to the chair of Construction at the University of Porto. In October 2008, during a visit to Salento, he was awarded honorary citizenship by the City Council of Calimera (LE).