Arqueossítio da Rua de Dom Hugo, Porto

Twenty archaeological layers lie beneath this house, reaching roughly three metres below the interior floor. Within them are remains spanning Porto’s earliest formation: a proto-historic fortified settlement, Roman occupation, and the late medieval city. Stand still for a moment by the visible medieval wall beside the cathedral, and consider that the compact building in front of you contains that long sequence rather than simply standing near it.

The first house on this plot was Gothic, but it was destroyed. Its later owners reused surviving walls when they raised the building that followed. Excavations carried out inside during the 1980s transformed the understanding of the site, establishing human presence here as early as the fourth or fifth century.

The building was restored in 1993 and became the northern regional headquarters of Portugal’s Order of Architects. Its redesign received the João de Almada Prize the next year. That makes this an unusually direct encounter with Porto’s layered past: not ruins set apart from the city, but ancient structures held inside a working urban house. The archaeological site is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 10:00 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon, and closes on public holidays.