The Braga Municipal Stadium is a football stadium built in 2003 as the new home for local club SC Braga, and as a 2004 UEFA European Football Championship venue. Designed by the Portuguese Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, it is often considered one the most original and beautiful stadiums in the world. The Financial Times, states that: "There has been nothing in this country to match the architectural delight of Eduardo Souto de Moura’s stadium for Braga in Portugal, a breathtaking arena carved into the side of a rock face on the site of a former quarry."

Eduardo Souto de Moura has been awarded with the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Extracts of the Citation from the Jury:

“... the scope of his work has expanded: the Braga Municipal Stadium, Portugal, designed in 2000 is muscular, monumental and very much at home within its powerful landscape.

...Souto de Moura is an architect fascinated by the beauty and authenticity of materials. His knowledge construction and skill with materials are always visible in his buildings. He has the confidence to use stone that is a thousand years old or to take inspiration from a modern detail by Mies van der Rohe. The thoughtful use of copper, stone, concrete and wood in the Cultural Center in Porto, completed in 1991, for example, a testament to his ability to combine materials expressively. By modifying pavements, textures, pathways and public spaces for the subway system of Porto, he has granted new significance to public spaces. House Number Two, built in the town of Bom Jesus, Portugal, in 2007, has achieved an uncommon richness through the subtle banding in the concrete of its exterior walls.”

For additional information:
http://www.pritzkerprize.com/index.html