"[...] Both the Library and the Museum should benefit from the restoration of the connecting body to be rebuilt, in order to alleviate the inconvenience of the cloister appearing distorted by the impossibility of a continuous circulation [...]. 

Thus, on the south side and bordering the República Square, is located the Church of S. Gonçalo, along with the beautiful Ionic cloister [...], where no significant intervention is planned [...]. At the opposite top, around a patio defined by two wings based on arches and by the set formed by the old kitchen and refectory [...], develops the second sector, which will be occupied [...] by the various municipal and financial services. Finally, we will refer to the central part, where it is planned to install the Library-Museum, consisting of a second cloister which lacks the north wing [...]. 

Although a relatively rigorous reconstruction of this body was possible with the existing information, it was considered more in keeping with a current intervention [...] to propose, beyond a purely archaeological work, a solution of modern expression tending to complete and dignify the existing architectural values. 

The new wing, with its own structural coherence, intends to respond to the demands imposed by the characteristics of each of the spaces it faces. On the side of the Town Hall through a solution with openings only at the second-floor level which, although with a different configuration, follow the rhythm of the arcades that flank the courtyard, while the glass panes that garnish them [...] are arranged in a recessed plane that allows for a seamless development behind the opaque elements of the elevation. On the part facing the Museum, through a largely blind façade, whose overhang at second floor level will define a space on the ground level that will continue the covered path around the cloister." 

Alcino Soutinho