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capitalisation and in the project´s materialisation. That means that a certain subject frames its aware decisions in its own capital spectrum. However, every concept oscillates between boundaries and the luxury one is not an exception. Nevertheless, luxury tends to be exceptional in a constant reality. What is provided by the low-cost dynamics is an assumed access to an image that originally cannot be used or acquired. Even though the luxury concept has an inherent natural range, the low-cost dynamics fit in a competition for the maximum quality reflecting the minimum cost without losing the image value. The way these differences are articulated, however, make them closer than further. In the concept of luxury, hierarchy is related first to economic value and to social and cultural values second. When the luxury low-cost concept is proposed, a new dynamic is found. In Low-cost dynamics, the notion of hierarchy is annulled based on a generalised access to things and products. In extremis, this concept provides the access of every agent to every service or product, in contrast with the luxury ideology where one agent only accedes exclusively to the same product or service. If in luxury per se the distinction is influenced by a pyramid – with the economic value on top and supported by the social and cultural values – in luxury low-cost the distinction stands first to social and cultural values supported by economical values. The inversion of the way the recognition is made and developed after the use or possession of a certain good or service is the major cut between luxury and luxury low-cost. If the inversion were not made, luxury low-cost would not be possible as the economical and financial values are crucial to recognise luxury in its opulent, magnificent and ostentatious role. The project represents a new dynamic where the client, aware of his limits, desires the best and nothing less than that and demands from the designers a knowledge and recognition of contemporary times. More than a sign or bourgeois socio-economic reference, directed to extravagance and kitsch humour, the project confronts contemporary needs, creating an original language which marks the link between the now and the pre-existing. Nevertheless, humour reminiscences are noted. It’s the interpretation of scarcity in a materialised solution that paradoxically reveals a too radical anti-traditional feeling for example. The project’s singularity frames itself in an eccentric perspective. It may be said that, without the radicalisation, this language would lose strength and syntactic coherence. If Mies van der Rohe, in his own architecture interpretation, immortalised the well-known Less is more, the 21st century’s beginning could be clearly marked by a variant, With less do more, highlighting the opportunity for a cultural valorisation and diminishing the preponderance of economical power. The understanding of luxury as a cultural process is the advantage of Mendes’ project, as it proposes the perception of a reality where scarcity takes an important role in contrast to excess.
Joao A zou gado - Projekt