The Ílhavo Municipal Library is located in the suburbs of the city, in the remains of the Visconde de Almeida Manor, a noble house from the 17th/18th century, later transformed and demolished. The limits of the manor and the line of the old façade were chosen as an anchorage point, where administrative areas and programs compatible with the façade's rhythm were placed. The concept behind the rest evolves from an understanding of the public and civic character of the building, whose urban role was reinforced.

The design of the reading rooms and youth forum establishes direct morphological relations with the surroundings, thus making the architecture work in context as a closing piece which incorporates the physiognomy and traces of the surroundings. The chapel, deprived of its original decorative elements, was restored in essence preserving all possible evidence of its lost past. The furniture and the new altar panels by Pedro Calapez were designed in an unequivocally contemporary style, which rediscovers the typology and original polychromic work.