Beauty in Spite of All is not an anthological or retrospective exhibition, but an exploration of the spatial investigations carried out by the architects Aires Mateus over the last twenty years.

The book accompanying the exhibition brings the Serralves exhibition experience to the page, exploring 91 spatial representations that challenge scale and matter. Traversing the fundamental themes of the exhibition at the Siza Wing — Garden, Time, Matter, Context, Geographies and Ephemeral — it invites the reader to explore not only buildings, but ways of thinking about space and the permanence of forms. Featuring essays by architect, researcher and university lecturer Marta Bogeá, architect, lecturer and critic Ricardo Carvalho, and a visual essay by André Cepeda, the publication also includes a conversation between Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus and Nuno Crespo, curator of the exhibition.