ABSTRACT
The egg has always elicited interest due to its multiple meanings and because of its symbolic significance. The current text aims to outline its numerous facets, both in its symbolic and sacred value and in its secular and creative value. According to different cultures and religions, it has been used to explain the origins of the world and of time, to represent a symbol of birth and rebirth; to symbolise purity or materiality, fertility or the alchemistic transformation of the elements. Within itself hides the mystery that often alludes to a future of unknown forms. It has been assimilated into the idea of primordial CHAOS from which rule and order, and as a consequence, humanity, are born. But it has also been widely used as an art object or as an object in art. Its oval shape has also been widely used in architecture, as a revolutionary choice, as is the case of the Borromini or Peruzzi spaces; or as a provocation, as is the case of the unfulfilled project for the competition of the Pompidou Centre in Paris by André Bruyere. But sometimes it has given origin to embryonic architectural spaces, capable of creating a suspension in time, where in silence both architecture and art can converse, as is the case of the OVO project by Rui Chafes and Camilo Rebelo.
