The Copper Beech of FAUP

Architects travel to this campus for the buildings. The tree was here first. This copper beech grows in the gardens of the Quinta do Gólgota, the old estate that became the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, a short walk from the Casa Cor-de-Rosa and the Pavilhão Carlos Ramos. Álvaro Siza began remodelling the site in 1984, and what he built here is one of the addresses the Escola do Porto is known by, visited by architecture students from all over. The beech was already more than sixty years old when the first drawings were made. It measures 4.85 metres around at chest height, stands 23 metres tall and carries a crown 20 metres across, all measured in 2020, the year Portugal's forest institute classified it a tree of public interest on the city council's proposal and with the University's agreement as owner. Copper beech is the purple-leaved form of the common European beech, planted through the 19th century by estate owners who wanted something on the lawn that was not green. This one has outlived the fashion, the estate and the family that paid for both, and it now spends its days being photographed by accident, in the background of somebody's shot of a Siza wall. Campus hours, no ticket.