Alfredo Durão de Matos Ferreira, son of António José Matos Ferreira, a railway company doctor in Trás-os-Montes, and Berta Durão, painter, was born in Lisbon, in 1928. 

 His Trás-os-Montes family roots, particularly in Torre de Moncorvo and Barca D’Alva, indelibly marked his life. He attended primary and secondary schools in Funchal, Urros, in the municipality of Torre de Moncorvo, and in the cities of Lisbon (Escola João de Deus and Liceu Pedro Nunes) and Bragança. In 1948, after a stay in Funchal with Américo Durão, his maternal uncle, he enrolled in the Architecture Course at the Porto School of Fine Arts (ESBAP), which he concluded in 1959. 

At that School, he was a fellow student of Alberto Neves, Álvaro Siza Vieira, António Menéres, Joaquim Sampaio and Vasco Macieira Mendes, all of whom were members of the “sala 35” group from 1949 onwards. The group, headquartered in the Imperial building, at Liberdade Square, in Porto, was later expanded with the addition of Luís Botelho Dias. 

Unlike some colleagues who, for certain periods, worked in Fernando Távora's office (as was the case of Alberto Neves, Álvaro Siza, António Menéres and Joaquim Sampaio), Matos Ferreira evolved autonomously, although initially with the support of his uncle, for whom he designed residential buildings. 
Despite not having completed the work he had planned to present in the Competition for Obtaining the Architect's Diploma (CODA) – Urban and agricultural reconversion for the village of Urros, in 1973 he submitted his Curriculum Vitae to a bureaucratic procedure to obtain the course document administratively. 

He worked occasionally in partnership with some colleagues from “sala 35”. This was the case of Álvaro Siza Vieira and the design of a house in Parede, dated from 1964, and which was intended for his uncle Américo. This project, which had 3 versions, was never built. As a student, he also worked with another uncle, the architect Mário Abreu. 

Between 1970 and 1972 he collaborated in Arménio Losa's office. Among other projects, he worked on a bus station for Vila Nova de Famalicão and on the study of an apartment and commercial building on Gonçalo Cristóvão Street, Porto. Between 1972 and 1982 he was invited to work in a professional society with Fernando Távora, in the areas of architecture and urbanism, having then developed activity in the SAAL process (Local Ambulatory Support Service), north zone, organizing the technical brigade of Lapa. 
Between 1983 and 2008, Alfredo Matos Ferreira had his own office. He taught at ESBAP and later at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, between 1976 and 1998. 
In 1986, he presented the work entitled Aspects of the Portuguese Space Organization, which was considered a reference for the study of the form and urban structure of Portuguese cities. 

 Alfredo Matos Ferreira, emeritus professor at FAUP and author of a relevant work, although little known, died in 2015. 

His personal archive, donated to the Marques da Silva Foundation on December 20, 2016, brings together the documentary estate from his professional practice as an architect (drawings, models, photographs and films). During the ceremony, which took place in the home-studio of architect José Marques da Silva, on Marquês de Pombal Square, Porto, there were interventions by the architects Siza Vieira, António Menéres, Sérgio Fernandez, Mário Brochado Coelho and the designer Joana Matos Ferreira de Sá, granddaughter of Alfredo Matos Ferreira. On the same occasion, the exhibition and installation “Terra D’Alva”, conceived and coordinated by the architect and professor Manuel Mendes, was inaugurated. 

(Universidade do Porto Digital / Gestão de Documentação e Informação, 2017)