A place for all is an ambition, not a guest list. But it helps to say who we have in mind when we draw a table, a pavilion or a villa. This series will be a set of short portraits of people we admire and hope to welcome to the Alentejo: the ones who make us think, and who we suspect would make each other think too.
They will not all be famous. Some run companies, some run kitchens. Some teach, some make objects with their hands, some are simply very good at asking questions. What they share is a habit of paying attention, and a willingness to sit at a long table with strangers and see what happens.
The mix is the point
YAH was conceived so that people from different worlds meet: entrepreneurs and artists, teachers and students, families and friends, thinkers and makers. Most places are built for one of those groups and tolerate the others. We think the interesting conversations happen at the borders, when the founder sits next to the potter and the potter next to the surgeon, and nobody is the expert in the room for very long.
The portraits will reflect that. A cook who grows what she serves. A designer who left a large studio for a small one. A teacher who runs silent hikes. A family that chose a season in the Alentejo over a fortnight on the coast. Real people, in their own words where possible, with the questions they are carrying at the moment we speak.
A place for all.
An invitation
If you recognise yourself in any of this, or someone you know, we would like to hear from you. Not for a portrait, necessarily, though that may follow. For a conversation about what you would want from a place like YAH, and what you would bring to it. The people make the place, and the place is not finished until they arrive.