The 50-hectare zone where Parque das Nações is located today and which runs along the river for five kilometers was, at the end of the 1980s, a field of containers, slaughterhouses and polluting industries, where nearby homes were decadent, poor and unhealthy. In 20 years, much has changed in this eastern part of the city, especially in the preparation phase for Expo’98. At the end of the world exhibition, there was concern that the equipment of the venue had later use, in order to avoid its abandonment and degradation. At the same time, large public contracts were launched, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, a rail interface and a new metro line with seven stations. This area has become one of the most modern districts of the city, bringing together commercial, cultural and leisure areas and attracting many companies and institutions, all with a privileged view over the Tagus.

The Oriente Station, bold construction of Santiago Calatrava marks the starting point of this itinerary. With a steel based structure, it is often compared to a Gothic cathedral, but breaks with the medieval tradition of the horizontal design of the clasp line. In his creation, the Spanish architect took advantage of tradition and modernization as a bridge between the past and the future, and on the upper platform, Calatrava used the iconography of the tree related to the hills of Lisbon. The structure, which won the Brunel Prize in 1998, accommodates one of Lisbon’s most important railway and bus stations, a metro station (Oriente) and a shopping area.

With its back to Estação do Oriente, at the intersection of D. João II Avenue and Avenida do Pacífico, stands the Vodafone building, by Alexandre Burmester and José Carlos Gonçalves. Primo Valmor 2005, this construction develops at the fenestration level, a contemporary reinterpretation of some themes of the Renaissance architecture, and it is possible to establish an analogy between it and the Casa dos Bicos. It has two distinct faces, one open to the river and another to the avenue, and has a construction area of approximately 70 thousand square meters. It is a building with great urban impact, both for its size and architectural value, and for the technological challenges involved.

In the background, you can see the Pavilion of Portugal, by Álvaro Siza Vieira and now belongs to Lisbon’s University, responsible for its maintenance. It is a building composed of two separate bodies, one of which corresponds to the building – a solid and sober volume – and the other corresponds to a large square covered by an imposing and gigantic concrete palette. The one that is a prodigious work of engineering, is based on the idea of a sheet of paper placed on two bricks.

From there, you can still see the Towers of São Rafael and São Gabriel, housing buildings with 110 meters of height of José Quintela. The architecture is visibly inspired by the simplicity and elegance of a boat’s bow towards the river. At the top, two candles appear.

Following D. João II Avenue, next to the Vasco da Gama Shopping Center and at the intersection with Avenida do Índico, the Atelier ARX, by architects Nuno and José Mateus. Intended for offices, commerce and parking, this construction consists of an absolute black granite box softened. It has a unique and contemporary identity and a bio-climatic conception. This box is perforated in the corners, opening over the envelope and emitting audiovisual contents to the outside.

In the background, the Altice Arena, of Regino Cruz, nowadays one of the main halls of spectacles of the country, and that during these 20 years, has hosted several initiatives such as the Web Summit and the Summit of the Nato.

Continuing on Avenida D. João II, around the NOS building there are six tile panels by Leonel Moura who portray mermaids, drawing inspiration from Western painting, more concretely in classics of female nudes. After choosing the nude images he wanted, given his position, he clipped the fish tail through a digital collage. To complete the work, the artist uses the excerpt mermaids singing, from the epic poem Odyssey, from Homer, to the panel on the left side.

After crossing the avenue, it is time to stop in front of the VIP Executive Art’s Hotel by Frederico Valsassina, Primo Valmor 2004, to appreciate the tile panel of Erró. In this panel Pop Art, the Icelandic artist represents characters from North American comics and science fiction. Erró, Roy Lichtenstein’s last living disciple, ceded the copyright to this panel to the Viúva Lamego Factory.

At the roundabout, go down the Avenida da Boa Esperança where, on the left, buildings of Tomás Taveira, the leading representative of postmodern architecture in Portugal.

Continuing down the avenue, you come to the Vasco da Gama Tower, recently transformed into a hotel by the architect Nuno Leónidas, whose structure symbolizes two candles that embrace the tower.

On the left side you will find Italic, a sculpture of Amy Yoes painted in iron, reminiscent of a gigantic typographic character or the three-dimensionality of a capitol of a medieval codex evoking the Portuguese baroque vocabulary. It is possible to enter the sculpture, to surround it and to try to climb it, which allows to gain, with each movement, different internal perspectives and new exterior frameworks.

Immediately behind, it is discovered There are waters, a panel of tiles specially designed for the Expo’98 by the Chilean artist Roberto Matta, last exponent of the surrealist generation. A little further on, and still within the scope of public art, The Wall Man, a work by Pedro Pires consisting of five anthropomorphic sculptures oriented in different directions, with small differences between them. Composed of small iron squares that act as pixels in a photograph, these figures aim to question the concept of identity in the contemporary industrial world. Following by Passeio dos Heróis do Mar, passing by the Olivais, where there stands a River Mountain, a sculpture of Rui Sanches composed of three circular platforms cut by a wall which intends to illustrate an island of rest. The wall is torn by a window that allows to see the river, like a painting, and a mountain, represented by the block of stone.

Crossing the garden towards the river, enter the Passeio do Tejo, going through it until you reach the Queen D. Catarina de Bragança. This ten meter high replica of a statue built in the United States of America of Audrey Flack, by the Association Friends of Queen Catherine, to celebrate the fact that the Borough of Queens, in New York, owes its name to this queen.

In the play by Federico García Lorca, the last one written by the Andalusian author before being executed by the Phalangist forces during the Spanish Civil War, the widow Bernarda Alba takes charge, with an iron fist, of the lives of her five daughters (Angustias, Madalena, Amélia, Martírio and Adela). The house is the jail where the matriarch encloses and oppresses the drives of her descendants.

Starting from the plot of this absolute masterpiece, João Garcia Miguel (who some years ago brought to the theaters another of the essential pieces of the author, Yerma) wrote a text as if looking for “the hidden and inaccessible secret it contains.” Suppressing some characters, the show explores “a deep connection with the earth and body” that the director reveals in the writing and in the universe of Lorca. A universe he takes to himself. Therefore, The House of Bernarda Alba according to Garcia Miguel, moves away from “the gaze on daily life to dive into the depths of each one of us.”

Bernarda Alba’s character – here interpreted surprisingly by the well-known Irish actor Sean O’Callaghan – is paradigmatic of this view, as if cruelty was, in short, an expression of the human being. “To save her family, Bernarda becomes the despot. Mourning is not the catharsis, but the barbarity,” the director highlights. “At the end, this character embodies the invisible cycle between extremes that each of us has within us and that at any moment, without us understanding, reveals itself.”

In one of the points of these extremes, Bernardas Albas appears and they “grow in the cruel light of our day, becoming more and more coercive, with discourses where they admit mechanisms of repression and censorship, in the name of freedom.” But at least on this stage, rather than addressing economics, politics or society in general, “what really matters is to dig deep into the human intimate” especially in a search for everything that is beyond reason.

An international cast

In this production of Companhia João Garcia Miguel, the director has only one Portuguese actor, the young Duarte Melo, with whom he previously worked in Tio João. “He is a great performer, with an impressive physicality, one of those who has the right attributes for the kind of work e do. “ He plays the role of the housekeeper Poncia. But, as we have seen, this is not the only “suppression” of gender that the show contains, since Sean O’Callaghan plays the castrating mother Bernarda Alba.

For the actor with a vast curriculum in Shakespeare’s Globe and Royal Shakespeare Company productions, “it’s a huge challenge because this is one of the most important characters in drama worldwide. Curiously, today there are great actresses playing male characters. In Britain, it has been recurrent to see women playing Lear or Richard III. Bernarda was offered to me, and I feel that it is a work of enormous freedom, so great that it goes beyond gender.”

For Garcia Miguel, both choices allow “to avoid a predetermined image of the characters,” since “the theater is no longer the world of naturalism, but of possibilities.” And how would the director not take advantage of the possibility of having an actor like Sean O’Callaghan under his direction, he who is a great admirer of Garcia Miguel’s work?

The feminine presence is in the Brazilian interpreters, Annette Naiman and Paula Liberati, to whom Garcia Miguel gave the roles of the daughters Martírio and Adela. For both, “it’s not just about working with someone as recognized as Garcia Miguel. To do this piece, considering we left Brazil two and a half months ago, has a very special meaning for us. There are a lot of Bernardas Albas walking around there.”

After the preview at Teatro Ibérico, from the18th to the 20th of October, this visceral and exciting look on The House of Bernarda Alba will return to the same stage between December 12 and 22. Before this more extensive season in Lisbon, the show passes through Brazil during the month of November.

In the central zone of Lisbon, on the platform of the Roma / Areeiro station, the suburban train is arriving coming from Alcântara-Mar to Castanheira do Ribatejo.. Without undue delays, we enter the train, knowing that in just under a quarter of an hour we will be sitting in the comfortable lobby of Biblioteca de Marvila talking to some of the local Visionaries.

Gently sliding down the rails, the train seems to carry us out of the city through vacant lots, entanglements of freeways and overpasses that cross the track and narrow nests that lead to small vegetable gardens. As expected, in six minutes, we disembarked at the station of Marvila. A few meters to the north, without particular ostentation, but very visible, is our first destination: the Biblioteca de Marvila.

Living the programmer’s insomnia

Due to personal availabilities, only four of the 12 Visionaries of Marvila answered our call. And it is with enthusiasm that they share the experience, in this edition of Os Dias de Marvila (The Days of Marvila), of being in the role of programmers of two of the shows to be exhibited at the festival – 1.5º Ponto de Equilíbrio, from Companhia Erva Daninha, and the quartet concert DG4.

To be a visionary is precisely to play the role of programmer. The project Visionários, promoted in several municipalities by ArteemRede, allows the viewing of different shows and artistic creations to a group of people who evaluate them and will select them for future public exhibition. However, it is not enough to like – you have to check the availability of the artists, the available budget and many other aspects that, as a rule, give many sleepless nights to a professional programmer. Cila, Dina, Rui and Eunice, visionaries from Marvila, speak up! After having seen a roll of projects in loco and in video, the group, “very heterogeneous in terms of ages and life paths,” decided and it is now up to the public to evaluate their choices.

“All the punches I took were because of rap“

The reunion of old friends that the love for music, namely rap, brought together. Seated in front of us, after a photo session under a blazing sun, Viruz, Myslo and Rato Chinês joined us and quickly began to share stories that seem to come out of the songs they sing. Of the three, Rato Chinês is the only Marvilense (Viruz and his producer and DJ, Myslo, come from Campolide) and his artist name is very symptomatic of what is, but also was, the neighborhood where the library is installed nowadays. “Rato is my nickname since I was a kid. That is how, here in Chelas [name already removed from the toponímia of Lisbon, but still widely used by locals], everyone knows me. The Chinês (Chinese) is from the time when this place was almost just tents and the road was a dirt track: the Chinatown.”

Viruz and Rato met in the 90’s, in Bairro Alto, and together they were doing freestyle rap in the street, echoing the admiration they had “for the poems and the beat which they heard from the older students in the hallways of their school.” They speak of a golden period, between 2001 and 2004, in which the duo was very successful in the lively neighborhood of the capital. However, life took them down to different paths: Viruz has a well-established career in national rap and Rato is back in the art that made him take all the punches he remembers. And, in a way, it is a return that the Library sponsored: “I came in here a few months after opening, and asked for a studio. There were none, but the doors of an auditorium were opened to me.” In fact, this experience leads the trio to underline the importance of ending mutual mistrust and prejudice between the residents of the area and those who come from the outside: “and as artists, it is up to us to be mediators of these realities,” they emphasized.

Cultivate self-esteem in those who need it so much

We now cross the train track towards the Marvila Road, turning our backs to Chelas. In Azinhaga das Veigas, an old palace houses Casa de São Vicente, an association currently dedicated to the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, founded in 1940 by the Countess of Mafra, Maria Antónia de Mello Breyner. Here, Suzana Rodrigues works with some people of this IPSS in the exhibition A nossa cara não é estranha (Our face is not strange), which will be featured in Biblioteca de Marvila during the festival.

The exhibition consists of recording, through photography, images that are particularly familiar to all audiences, using the young as models and the not so young people of this House. Suzana gives us an example, showing the famous painting by Johannes Vermeer on the computer The Girl With a Pearl Earring. Then she shows a picture of the model, a female student and member of the institution, reproducing the beautiful painting, and asks us: “Isn’t she beautiful? Can you see that she’s a woman with a cognitive impairment?”

The purpose of this exhibition will be precisely to show everyone how “these people are special, that this is their other face” and at the same time to make the confidence level of these “very special people” grow. When they see themselves on these photographs, their “self-esteem can only rise.” On the other hand, a public moment of this magnitude will provide an additional motivation for many of the families to come back to meet their own. Many of the students in the House live at the institution (there are 25 females in the Home) and they have little or no contact with their families.

At the farewell, the technical director of Casa de São Vicente, Cristina Gomes, leaves us a wish: “We want to be more and more included in the city, but the city has to include us. We have lots of ideas to share.” This exhibition is surely one of them.

“A site divided into zones with letters of the alphabet”

We now head east to the apogee zone of Marvila Velha, where everything seems to be changing at an amazing pace. With the river in full view, we enter the “One Your First Stop complex”, a former railway warehouse, now occupied by creative industries and co working. Here we find the director and performer Tiago Vieira, born and raised in Marvila, and Patrícia Carreira, director and member of the Companhia Cepa Torta, accompanied by young people from her community theater project. This project involves students from the parish schools and the neighborhood community of Marvila Velha, Lóios and PRODAC. Both will present two creations in Os Dias de Marvila.

Already famous in the Portuguese theater, Tiago is the co-founder of Latoaria, in Mouraria. “I would not stage and create the way I do if I had not been born and raised in Chelas,” he explains, before going into the concept of A Pátria é a minha Revolução (The Homeland is my Revolution), a show he is organizing with a cast of actors and professional dancers, and that will be presented in one of the warehouses of the complex where we are at. For what he calls the “apocalyptic concert,” Tiago will seek out authors who marked him, such as Ortega Y Gasset, Nietzsche, Genet, Rimbaud, but also Sam The Kid, the rapper who, just like him, was born and raised in the neighborhood and sang Chelas, “place divided into zones with letters of the alphabet.” “It is a tribute to the people who marked me in Chelas, a poetic interpretation of the memories I keep, of that almost Chekhovian boredom of hot days that brought scents from the distant lands of Africa. Because in Chelas, especially in Zona J, we can still breathe deep African environments. And I do not conceive my neighborhood memories without them.”

Lara, one of the young women who participate in the Cepa Torta project, the O Mapa do Mundo Reinventado (The Reinvented World Map), intervenes: “But it’s not only Africans! My family came here from the north. They lived in a tent, there was a vegetable garden. Then there was the rehousing. And those who don’t live here continue to look at us with suspicion. Of course there is poverty, but I think that people see Chelas as worse than it really is when we talk about bad things.”

How about today? What has changed? None of the young people who are present is quite sure, but Tiago concludes: “To have a library in Chelas is something incredible…”

The last slow in Marvila

Our next destination is the Party Hall of Vale Fundão, there we meet Rui Catalão, who is rehearsing O Último Slow (The Last Slow), a show that will have two presentations in Os Dias de Marvila (although one of them will be in the Torreão Poente do Terreiro do Paço). This is a return to this territory after about two years ago, at the invitation of the Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, he created Assembleia (Assembly), a spectacle carried out by Marvilenses from two different neighborhoods: Alfinates and Armador.

“For this project, I started auditioning at Biblioteca de Marvila, where 70 people were present. Unfortunately, none, except David, who is with us, has become engaged.”

It will be David, a neighborhood youth with some cognitive limitations, who will act as a touchstone in this new creation. “It is a dance theater show, made of dramatic movement without words,” from slows, “this fashion in loss,” these songs that are part of each one of us when we are growing.

In the scene, Rui joins professional and amateur performers (some who come from creative projects he did in Vale da Amoreira), and regrets that in Marvila “it is still difficult to call in the community.” In fact, the director points out how much there is to do on the ground for people to mobilize. This is an aspect pointed out by many of the people with whom we talked. From local residents to other agents, all realize that only the persistence of social and cultural projects can definitively end the “hidden city” that one day was called Chelas.

The radiant future is the children

It could be some sort of epilogue to this trip, but we believe it to be the beginning of everything.

With the day ending, we return to the Library to discover another project that has, in that space, a house. This is the Children’s Choir of the Biblioteca de Marvila, and now that the school days are over, some young stars can pose for the photograph.

Conducted by the conductor Catarina Braga, the Choir, also sponsored at its genesis by the Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, is preparing for another year of work, still without certainty as to the number of children who will integrate it. “Last year we had 11, 12 children coming regularly to rehearsals,” says Catarina. And curiously, they come from all over the parish, so they constitute a very heterogeneous group in terms of social stratum. Although very challenging, it is a small achievement, and as a mother comments, it is “a project that is exposing the neighborhood very positively, demonstrating that things are happening here.”

One concrete example of inclusion was the participation of some Roma children. “Not being regulars, we managed to convince them to come, and we hope they do not give up. It would be very important for them,” emphasizes the teacher.

Now is the time to raise voices and start preparing the presentation planned for Os Dias de Marvila. And we had a small sample of: Cancioneiro da Bicharada by Carlos Gomes, the children present interpreted O Grilo, from a poem by Alexandre O’Neill, with choreography too.

In the future, Catarina wants to put the choir singing Marvila and, for that, has already begun a search for the repertoire of the parish, rich mainly in songs from the “marchas.”

The sun is setting and it is time to leave this side of the city. Towards the threshold, the eternally hopeful voices of the children are still heard. After all, it is with them that one begins to construct the future of the city. And the words we heard from rapper Rato Chinês a few hours ago come to mind – “In my time, we believed that there were only two ways out of the neighborhood: football or fight!”

Maybe, now or in the near future, other ways will open up.

The old and amiable settlement of Benfica, although far from having the same importance it once had in the capricious and inconstant concept of the capital’s high society, is nevertheless in its own right, the suburban corner of Lisbon that gives us the closest idea of the prestige Tivoli and Frascati have in Rome. Nowhere else in Portugal, except for Sintra, will there be gathered together in such a small circuit, as beautiful, as historic, as anecdotal, as nostalgic farms as the ones in Benfica. Ramalho Ortigão

We start our journey at the entrance of the Zoo in Praça Humberto Delgado. The Zoo, as we know it today, was inaugurated on May 28, 1905 in the old Quinta das Laranjeiras, which belonged to the Count of Farrobo (Joaquim Pedro Quintela). Portuguese aristocrat, philanthropist and patron of the arts, he died in misery in 1869 having squandered his entire fortune. Before Quinta das Laranjeiras, the Zoo operated in Parque da Palhavã (where Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian is now located). With the lease of the land ending in 1905, and with the generosity of the owner of Quinta das Laranjeiras, the Count of Burnay, the Zoo then moved to its new place, where it remains until today.

We leave the main entrance of the zoo and continue through Estrada de Benfica until we arrive at the former main entrance, formerly the entrance to Teatro Thalia. The fascination of the Count of Farrobo of the performing arts led him to have a theater built next to Palácio das Laranjeiras in 1820. At its inauguration, on February 26, 1843, a large party was held for Queen D. Maria II. In 1862, a fire destroyed the theater. The count still tried to rebuild it, but by that time he had no fortune left and the theater was left abandoned. Quinta das Laranjeiras was sold at public auction in 1874 (after the death of the count), having passed through several owners. In 1940, the palace was purchased by the Ministry of Colonies and eventually hosted several ministries. In 2010, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education launched a rehab project for the theater, which was left in the hands of Gonçalo Byrne, Patrícia Barbas and Diogo Lopes. Right now, Teatro Thalia is the stage of various cultural and scientific events, and regularly hosts Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa concerts.

Continuing through Estrada de Benfica, we arrive at Chafariz das Águas Boas (or Santo António da Convalescença). The fountain was built on D. Maria I’s request in order to respond to the needs of the inhabitants of Estradas da Convalescença (currently Estrada de Benfica) and Laranjeiras. It was supplied with water from the Aqueduct, and was completed at the beginning of the 18th century in 1817. In its decor it shows the royal weapons of D. João VI.

Just ahead we have the Convent of Santo António da Convalescença, founded in 1640. The convent was built in a place called Cruz da Pedra, having served for many years as a hospice for sick religious people who, after being treated in the infirmary of the Santo António dos Capuchos Convent, went there to convalesce and were assisted by other religious people. The convent was closed in 1834. The facade, totally lined with tiles from various eras and in perfect condition, is rare in Lisbon. Two schools were set up here: the Technical Elementary School of Pedro de Santarém and the Professor Delfim Santos Preparatory school, as well as the International University.

We then proceed to a zone unknown to most of Lisbon’s inhabitants, a small and quiet neighborhood located in Travessa das Águas Boas, the Bairro Novo or Bairro das Águas Boas. Built in the height of Estado Novo (1960s and early 1970s), it is almost a village within the city, characterized by houses with high and narrow doors, in a very quiet area.

We go back and continue along Rua de São Domingos de Benfica, where, as we look at the facade of some buildings, we come across the “Wedged”, decorative elements in bas-relief, placed above the entrance of the buildings. In the 1940s and 1950s, construction had no great aesthetic sense. The issue was solved by incorporating these sculptures – most of them being of women lying down. In 1969, architect Francisco Keil do Amaral joked about the situation, finding bizarre the “epidemic proliferation of a strange type of sculpture” that he pledged to combat by creating an “Association for the Protection of Lisbon and of the Women Wedged between doors and windows.”

We follow the green corridor using the aerial passage. Here, we stop to observe the other side of the railroad, a predominantly green zone, with the Monsanto forest and some farms. We then arrive at Rua António Macedo, stopping at Quinta do Lameiro, whose house was built between 1670 and 1680 by the Sanches Baena family. In 1838, Abraham Weelhouse, married to Elisabeth Oom, bought it at auction. It was there that the couple’s son dedicated himself to experiments with imported seeds, leaving behind numerous books on the subject. It currently belongs to the Oom family.

We continue our journey until we reach Bairro do Calhau, a true village within the city. Built in the mid-20th century, it consists of ground-floor houses with a familiar atmosphere. Everyone here knows each other and has the typical neighborhood life. In Largo do Convívio, where Flor da Serra’s Residents Association works, we stop to eat a “pastel de nata” and drink coffee.

The itinerary continues on to Largo de São Domingos de Benfica, where we come across the Chafariz de São Domingos de Benfica, incorporated in the Palácio and Quinta de Devisme. It was built with royal permission on the initiative of Gérard Devisme, a bourgeois pombaline redwood merchant. In 1784, the fountain was finished, but it was only in 1787 that a license was granted that allowed for water passage from Águas Livres Aqueduct. There was one condition to this, though: in the event of a lack of water, the fountain would not be favored in relation to the fountains of greatest public need.

We now focus on the Palácio and Quinta de Devisme (or Infanta). It is an 18th-century farm belonging to French merchant Gérard Devisme, one of the most influential bourgeois of the time of Marquês de Pombal. The farm was then purchased by Infanta D. Isabel Maria, who settled there with a small court. Eight years after her death, the palace was turned into the São José College. In 1910, the palace and the farm passed into the hands of the Government, and a reformatory was installed there. Currently, it belongs to a religious congregation that gives social support to the population. The building has endured many transformations but maintains its original design.

Right next door, we have the Convento de São Domingos de Benfica, a Dominican convent of medieval construction, rebuilt in the 18th century. . In 1911, the Military Institute of the Pupils of the Army was installed here.

One of the interesting points to visit is the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário, which operated as the parish of São Domingos de Benfica until the 1970s, passing then into the hands of the Portuguese Air Force. Classified as Property of Public Interest, it is a fine example of mannerist religious architecture. On the inside, we have the figurative tile panels of António de Oliveira Bernardes, the main altarpiece and the mannerist altars of Jerónimo Correia, sculptures by Manuel Pereira, paintings by André Gonçalves and Vicenzo Carducci, the tomb inscription indicating the tomb of Friar Luís de Sousa, as well as the tomb of D. João das Regras (reference work in the medieval tomb, classified as a National Monument).

We leave the church, turn back, and head for the last point of our itinerary, the Palácio Marquês da Fronteira. Built between 1671 and 1672 as a hunting lodge for João Mascarenhas (the first Marquis de Fronteira), the palace is in a very quiet place, right next to Parque Florestal de Monsanto. Initially designed only for the holidays, the palace underwent changes after the 1755 Earthquake in order to host the family permanently. Although it is not very common, and despite being considered a national monument, the palace is still used as the residence of the Mascarenhas family. There is a part open to the public, which includes some rooms, the library and the garden, and it is also used for cultural purposes such as for concerts, poetry sessions or literary workshops.

[Photos by Francisco Levita]

Praça David Leandro da Silva, the heart of Poço do Bispo, is the starting point of this route. Used since immemorial times, the eastern route that passed through here accompanied the bed of the river. It was on its margins that the convents, palaces and farms that supplied the city were built, mainly during and after the 16th century. The great transformation comes in the mid-19th century with the advent of industry. This wide area, well served by means of communication, including the river and, since 1856, the railway line, becomes an industrial pole with factories, warehouses and housing for workers. In Praça David Leandro da Silva, the three tramway lines that served the area crossed, something that was reflected in the area’s peculiar layout – it has the shape of a cone. The two urinals that can be found there, one made of masonry and brick and another of iron, are now rare in Lisbon. Two buildings can be seen from the center of this platform from which a good part of the local history has been written.

In front of us, in the direction of the river, we see the Abel Pereira da Fonseca Warehouses, headquarters of the company that between 1907 and 1993 was dedicated to the manufacture, marketing and distribution of wine. The founder, a large agricultural landowner in Bombarral, used to ship the wine through the river, and the unloading was done on a private pier located on the current Av. Infante D. Henrique. The building, designed by Norte Júnior, was built in 1917 and stands out for the originality of the facade: the large circular windows, with the shape of barrels, are surmounted by grape clusters and grapevine leaves in reference to the work of the company.

On the left side stands the former headquarters of a competing firm, owned by José Domingos Barreiro, which worked between 1887 and the end of the 19th century . Designed by architect Edmundo Tavares, the building, also built in1917, combines an eclectic decoration with its elegant features. This company was supplied by a railway line and, besides the headquarters and the offices, it had warehouses and a residential area for the workers.

A few steps ahead, already in Rua Fernando Palha stands the old Braço de Prata Military Factory. It was built between 1904 and 1908 at the site of the Pyrotechnics Workshop and Real Vidreira and dedicated itself to the manufacture of artillery ammunition for the Army Arsenal. Later, it extended its production to weapons and vehicles, reaching the peak of work during the Colonial War. In the 1950s, there was a great accidental explosion, hushed up by censorship. Disabled in the 1980s, it was transformed into a cultural center in 2007.

Before going to Rua Zófimo Pedroso, pause to look at the monument dedicated to the Builders of the City placed on Av. Infante D. Henrique. Sculpted by José de Guimarães in 1999, it was initially intended for the riverside area, in front of the Cordoaria Nacional. The set, which rises 25 meters above ground, integrates the Lisbon allegorical sculpture and was conceived as a reclining female figure facing the Tagus. The moment is appropriated to remember the maritime past of this busy avenue and the strong connection that existed between the two banks of the river.

While walking towards Rua Direita de Marvila, make a short stop in Rua do Vale Formoso de Cima, to contemplate the mannerist style niche where an image of Saint Augustine was placed. From this street, on the other side of a tunnel that goes under the railway line, we reach the old Quinta de Marvila or Quinta do Marquês de Abrantes.

Originally, it was part of the Esporão Majorat, having passed by inheritance to the Counts of Figueiró who sold it to the Marquises of Abrantes. In their possession, the house underwent improvements, but from the middle of the 18th century it was often leased, which resulted in a slow process of degradation. In the second half of the 19th century part of the farm was expropriated by the railways and, in 1862, the main building received Lisbon’s Escola Normal Primária that operated there until it was transferred to Benfica in 1919. At that time, it was occupied by several families, who settled here. It is also the seat of the “Sociedade Musical 3 de Agosto de 1885.” It is here that the Marvila march is practiced. In the farm lands, a neighborhood of precarious housing was built, known as Bairro Chinês. Today, the imposing 17th century portal is one of the few testimonies of the grandeur of the past.

A little further on, at number 46, the great gable worked on by the street artist Okuda from Spain, surprises anyone who passes it. Titled “Jungle King” this urban work of art, one of the many that have been emerging in this area, dates from 2014 and refers to the visit of the then Prince of Asturias, now King Philip VI, to Portugal.

Returning to Rua Direita de Marvila, it is time to stop at the magnificent Church of Santo Agostinho de Marvila. Integrated into the former religious convent of the Order of the Most Holy Savior, or Brígidas, as they were commonly called, the church survived the earthquake of 1755, despite heavy damage. The convent, occupied today by the D. Pedro IV Foundation, was founded in 1660 by Fernão Cabral, Archdeacon of the Cathedral of Lisbon, with the contribution of D. Isabel Henriques, who retired here after being widowed, and his daughter D. Juliana Maria de Santo António. The three of them are now buried n the interior of the church. The large panels of figurative tiles that decorate the nave and the choir are attributed to the monogram artist PMP, the gilded wood and the paintings are by José Rodrigues Ramalho (chancel altarpiece), António Pereira Ravasco (nave) and Bento Coelho da Silveira (main chapel and low choir). The themes related to Saint Augustine, Saint Bridget and the Order founded by her are predominant in the iconography.

Walking down to Rua do Açúcar, we return to the industrial past of the area. At the beginning of the street, the workers housing is lined up. Of particular note is the Pátio do Beirão, born from the site of the old Quinta do Bettencourt Manor, so called in the mid-18th century when it integrated the Esporão Majorat. There was a working sugar refinery in this farm in 1763, to which the street owes its name. Unfortunately, no vestiges remain of this building. Successively leased, the farm was eventually occupied by factory workers, keeping the 18th century portal as a testimony to its noble past. Vila Santos Lima, also known as Vila Pereira, is right next door to this courtyard. Built in 1888 by Joaquim dos Santos Lima, another businessman in the wine industry, it was intended to house his employees, keeping warehouses and workshops on the ground floor. It is one of the most interesting examples of working-class housing in Lisbon, notable for its modular repetition of the facade, topped by large chimneys, and by the interior where long corridors are illuminated by skylights.

Going down Rua do Açúcar, we arrive at the Mitra Palace, an imposing construction from the beginning of the 18th century. With D. Tomás de Almeida, Cardinal of Lisbon, this building become a patriarchal residence. There are few certainties about who the architects and artists who worked here were, but some researchers point to the names of Italian António Canevari, Hungarian Carlos Mardel or captain Rodrigo Franco. The Palace, which came to have a private pier, was the object of many interventions throughout the centuries, keeping the coat of arms of D. Tomás on the gate, whose steeple is also the original. Abandoned by the prelates in 1864 – who took much of the artistic filling – the building was sold, passing through several owners until it was acquired by the Lisbon City Council in 1930. From then on, the Asilo da Mendicidade (1933), the Library (1934) and the City Museum (1941-1970) all functioned in it.

Going around the palace, we enter Beco da Mitra, a place where several brick buildings stand. One of them, property of the local authority, houses, since 2005, the Teatro Meridional, a company founded in 1992 and several times distinguished nationally and internationally.

The old Matches Company is the next step on the way. Founded in 1895, on the proposal of Hintze Ribeiro, this company had the monopoly of the production of matches. The majority of its shareholders were of Portuguese nationality. The factory of Beato, an unusual structure closed in on itself, that worked until 1985, had about a thousand workers. Inside it had medical service, showers, cafeteria, day care center, a cooperative and a sports group.

Right next to it stands the modernist building of the former Luso-Belgian Rubber Factory. Founded by Victor Constant Cordier, it worked between 1926 and at the beginning of the 1980s and, as the name implies, it was dedicated to the manufacture of rubber products and accessories. The current building, a notable example of industrial architecture, was built in the 1940s, but the author is unknown. Going down Rua José Domingos Barreiros, we find the geomonument of the Middle Miocene (13 million years old) where vertebrate deposits are visible.

Before arriving at the last stage of the route, we must stop at Rua dos Amigos de Lisboa so that we can appreciate Torre do Marialva, the last vestige of Quinta do Marquês de Marialva, whose gardens were acclaimed by the Englishman William Beckford. From this viewpoint, today quite run-down, D. Pedro V watched, in 1856, the passage of the first train.

The tiles on the facade of the building of the former Sociedade Portuguesa de Navios Tanques (SOPONATA) are the best way to finish off this itinerary. Dated from 1950, they are a work by Júlio Pomar and Alice Jorge, at the time husband and wife, and represent the activity of the shipping company founded on 1947, which was mainly engaged in oil transportation.

The reeds which grow next to the mouth of Rio Seco, which flowed here and still runs underground, are at the origin of the name Junqueira. Used for the first time in an official document dating to the reign of D. Dinis, in which the monarch donates the lands of this site to the Abbess of the Monastery of Odivelas, D. Urraca Pais, it was to be fixed in the toponymy of the city in the 18th century.  During this century there was a rush to the area by noble families who erected summer estates with sumptuous palaces that touched the river.

The journey through the aristocratic memory of Junqueira begins in the Palace of the Counts of Ribeira Grande, whose coat of arms decorates the façade. The palace, that was known by Liceu Rainha D. Amélia (D. Amélia Highschool), was built in the early 18th century by Francisco Baltasar da Gama, the Marquis of Nisa and descendant of Vasco da Gama. Bought later by the Count of Ribeira Grande, it suffered little damage in the Earthquake of 1755. It was inhabitated by the son of the count, D. Gonçalves Zarco da Câmara, the first Portuguese named to the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although altered quite a bit after being adapted to serve as a school in the decade of 1920, it retained the original features on the facade, the gardens and the chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Carmo.  It awaits the beginning of the construction work that will transform it into a hotel and museum.

Beyond the crossroads of the Counts of Ribeira is Palácio Burnay, one of the most imposing buildings of this street. Classified as a Property of Public Interest, it is, in its current form, a 19th century building, but its origin goes back to the early 18th century when the brother of the Count of Sabugosa erected the house. Following the earthquake of 1755, it was bought by the Patriarch of Lisbon, D. Francisco de Saldanha, as a summer residence, being known thereafter, and for nearly a century, as Palácio dos Patriarcas. In the first half of the 19th century, it changed hands again, being acquired by Brazilian financier Manuel António da Fonseca, nicknamed Monte Cristo, who remodeled it to 19th century bourgeois taste. A few years later, this eccentric man, who was said to have drunk tea in gold cups, sold the palace to D. Sebastião de Bourbon, a prince from Spain and grandson of the King of Portugal, D. João VI. Alienated by his heirs, the palace was bought at an auction in 1879 by the Count of Burnay, who performed extensive renovations, in which artists such as Rodrigues Pita, Ordoñes, Malhoa and the Italians Carlo Grossi and Paolo Sozzi participated. After the count’s death, the Palace was purchased by the state from his widow, and several services were installed there. In recent years, it has hosted the Institute of Tropical Scientific Research.

Next to it stands the Palácio dos Condes da Ponte, the counts lived here until the end of the second quarter of the 18th century. The records say that after this period, it belonged to a member of the Posser de Andrade family, and that the apostolic nuncio Acciaioli, who had been expelled from Portugal in the time of the Marquis of Pombal, stayed here. In 1945, it was acquired by the Administration of the Port of Lisbon and underwent several more changes.  Outside, its garden and fence were partially demolished when the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical and some pavilions of the Egas Moniz Hospital were built.

The Palácio Pessanha Valada, next to the stream, is named after two of its owners: D. João da Silva Pessanha, responsible for its construction after the earthquake of 1755, and the 2nd Marquis of Valada, D. José de Meneses da Silveira e Castro, Peer of the Kingdom of the Council of D. Luis, and chief officer of the Royal House, a man known for his intelligence and erudition. In front of this house, there was an old fort, which was turned into a prison in the reign of D. José where the Marquis de Alorna and Father Malagrida were imprisoned. It was demolished in 1939 during the works for the Portuguese World Exhibition.

After the Egas Moniz Hospital, the journey is interrupted by the beginning of Calçada da Boa Hora, where the Palácio is located. Its history is linked to the apogee and decadence of the Saldanha family. The primitive building, dating from the 16th century, underwent thorough renovations in the 18th century, when the 2nd Count of Ega, Aires José Maria de Saldanha, was the owner. The magnificent Salão Pompeia (Pompeii Hall), lined with panels of Dutch tiles representing views of European ports, is from his time and is now classified as Property of Public Interest. At the time of the French Invasions, this house experienced days of glory with parties promoted by the Count, in which General Junot was a frequent guest. The friendship with the invaders led the family into exile, and the Palácio served first as a hospital and then as Marshal Beresford’s headquarters, being eventually donated to him by D. João VI, 1820. Three years later, the Saldanha family rehabilitated and demanded the property back. However, they would not be able to maintain it. It was sold and passed through several owners until it was acquired by the State in 1919, that here installed the Historic and Colonial Archive (today Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino).

An extensive wall bordered by trees accompanies the return to Rua da Junqueira. The wall surrounds Quinta das Águias, the magnificent set of the 18th century that today is abandoned, although classified as Property of Public Interest. The origin of this farm goes back to 1713 when a lawyer from the Casa da Suplicação built a palace here. The property was sold in 1731 to Diogo de Mendonça Corte-Real, Secretary of State in the reign of João V, who undertook great works in it, probably under the responsibility of Carlos Mardel, to whom he was close. Diogo Corte-Real was exiled by the Marquis of Pombal and never returned to Junqueira. After his death in 1771, a long dispute between his heirs and the Holy House of Mercy, to whom the former secretary had left his property, led to the abandonment and ruin of the farm. In 1841, it was bought by public entrepreneur José Dias Leite Sampaio who rehabilitates it, presumably with a project by Italian Fortunato Lodi. After his death, Quinta das Águias, which owes its name to the two large stone eagles that flanked the gate, passed through several owners, among them Dr. Fausto Lopo Patrício de Carvalho, who between 1933 and 1937 carried out deep renovations with the help of architects Vasco Regaleira and Jorge Segurado. Currently, the palace, which has been ransacked and vandalized several times, is on sale.

A few steps ahead, in a recess of the street, the colorful Junqueira Fountain demands a stop. Built in 1821, under the design of architect Honorato Macedo e Sá, it started operating the following year. Initially fed by a water mine located in Alto de Santo Amaro, from 1838 onward it began to be fed by a new source near Rio Seco. The current arrangement is by Raul Lino who ordered reproductions of rococo tiles to be put in place. In front, the rear of the Cordoaria Nacional, a building that extends for about 400 meters, was one of the first industrial centers of Junqueira. Created in the 18th century by decree of the Marquis of Pombal, it produced cables, candles, fabrics and flags.

Some doors above, one of the most remarkable buildings of Junqueira is to be found, the House of Lázaro Leitão Aranha, where today the Lusíada University is located. Built in 1734 by this important figure of the reign of King João V, who delivered the work to Carlos Mardel, this house welcomed illustrious tenants like Prince Charles Mecklenburg, brother-in-law of the King of England. It was also the scene of scandals such as the kidnapping of D. Eugenia José de Meneses, carried out in 1803 by the court doctor, João Francisco de Oliveira. There are suspicions this was ordered by prince D. João, the true seducer. The Palace went through several owners who carried out works by architects such as Korrodi, Bigaglia, Francisco Vilaça and Raul Lino. In one of these campaigns, the chapel, dating back to 1740 and dedicated to Our Lady of Conceição, was converted into a stable, and the original tiles were covered by masonry walls.

On the way to the last point of the route we can see, on the left, two Art Nouveau houses with facades embellished with decorative arches and forged iron balconies. Opposite the Palace of the Marquis of Angeja, in the square with the same name, we return to the 18th century.  After seeing his house destroyed in the earthquake of 1755, the marquis, D. Pedro António de Noronha e Albuquerque, received the land in Junqueira from the crown to build a new house, where there had previously been a fort. It is said that D. José I took refuge here after the attack against him in 1758. The palace remained in the possession of the Angeja family until 1910, when it was bought by the merchant José Alves Diniz that transformed it into a renting building, having as tenants illustrious figures such as Bernardino Machado and Almeida Garrett. In the west wing of the Palace, where a school operated, the Municipal Library of Belém has been installed since 1965.

Let’s start at the end, as if we were suggesting an itinerary to celebrate Ingmar Bergman’s 100 years. And ‘at the end’ means (re)discovering the Swedish filmmaker’s final work – Saraband(2003). At Cinema Ideal from July 12 onward, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson return to the silver screen to revisit, 30 years later, the characters from Scenes from a Marriage (1973). The two Bergmanian actors are joined by Borje Ahlstedt and Julia Dufvenius to interpret – in the words of Bergman himself – “a concert for symphony orchestra with four soloists.” A magnificent, innovative work in the use of digital cameras, Saraband’s return coincides with Bergman’s birthday on July 14.

And on the same day the Portuguese choreographer Olga Roriz will showcase A Meio da Noite (In the Middle of the Night) at Festival de Almada. According to Roriz, this work addresses “Bergman’s existentialist themes, and it is also a piece about the creation process, in a relentless search for oneself and others.” Touring in Portugal and Brazil, A Meio da Noite will be staged at Teatro Camões in October.

Back to Bergman’s oeuvre, key titles from his filmography will also be screened in October – not only in Lisbon but also around the world (just have a look at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation webpage to gauge the magnitude of the event). At Espaço Nimas, besides absolute masterpieces like The Seventh Seal or Persona,which have been regularly screened in that venue over the past few years, this new cycle includes three ‘new’ titles: Hour of the Wolf,, Shame (both released in 1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969), films that had not yet been included in the extensive catalog of Leopardo Filmes, the company that distributes and publishes Bergman’s films in Portugal.

In addition to his oeuvre, Espaço Nimas will also screen two documentaries focusing on the Swedish master’s unique personality. In Bergman – A year in a life,Jane Magnusson revisits the pivotal year of 1957, when The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries earned him international acclaim as a major filmmaker; when he made his first TV movie; and when he directed several theatrical productions, including a 5-hour rendering of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. According to Variety,Magnusson’s documentary is a striking portrayal of “a man so consumed by work, and by his obsessive relationships with women, that he seemed to be carrying on three lives at once.”

The second film to be premiered is Searching for Ingmar Bergman,by Margareth von Trotta (director of Hannah Arendt). In this documentary, the German filmmaker sets out to trace Bergman’s legacy by compiling interviews with directors who have been “touched” by the master, such as Olivier Assayas, Ruben Östlund, Mia Hansen-Love and Carlos Saura; screenwriters and playwrights, such as the great Jean-Claude Carrière; and actors, such as Liv Ullmann.

And to close this “itinerary,” a complementary suggestion: Bergman’s autobiography The Magic Lantern,published in Portugal as A Lanterna Mágica (Relógio d’Água). Here the filmmaker wrote: “Film work is a powerfully erotic business; the proximity of actors is without reservations, the mutual exposure is total. The intimacy, devotion, dependency, love, confidence and credibility in front of the camera’s magical eye… the mutual drawing of breath, the moments of triumph, followed by anticlimax: the atmosphere is irresistibly charged with sexuality. It took me many years before I at last learned that one day the camera would stop and the lights go out.”

Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1917, in Uppsala, a small town north of Stockholm. The son of a Lutheran pastor, his oeuvre was indelibly marked by his rigid, austere education. He became interested in theater as a student at Stockholm University (he wrote his first play, The Death of Kasper, in 1941). Cinema came afterwards – his first script was written for Alf Sjöberg’s Torments (1944). His directorial debut would take place the following year, with Crisis. Subsequently, Bergman built a long career in theater and film, and was globally acclaimed as one of the most brilliant authors of our time. He died in Fårö Island on July 30, 2007.

Not much remains of the old Aljube Prison. In the 1960s, after several campaigns with international repercussion, Salazar’s dictatorship decided to close down this sinister prison establishment located in the heart of Lisbon. A thorough whitewashing operation erased everything that might recall the fascist government’s repressive character inside the building. It was not until almost half a century later that the old building – which had been a prison for centuries, and where many tears and blood were shed – opened to the public as a museum. A living museum with many memories that cannot and should not, for the sake of democracy, be forgotten.

A century with little freedom of the press

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the establishment of the Republic and WWI triggered a series of structural disruptions in Portuguese society which eventually led to the Military Dictatorship (1926-1933) and the Estado Novo regime (1933-1974). The 48 years that followed saw the gradual dissolution of the liberal state, of the multi-party system, of the right to unionize, and of freedom of the press, sentencing the country to an atrocious obscurantism that would only be broken by the 1974 military coup.

The beginning of this journey through Aljube Museum takes us to the interwar period in Portugal, with particular emphasis on the limitations to freedom of the press. According to the director of the museum, historian Luís Farinha, “the Portuguese 20th century was heavily marked by limitations to the freedom of the press. We must not forget that censorship was established as early as in the First Republic.”

There are numerous reproductions of censored documents, from newspaper covers to articles. The strength of the ‘blue pencil’ deprives citizens of knowledge and bare facts, and the press becomes a natural extension of the dictatorship’s interests.

Resisting and subverting the ‘indisputable truths’ of Salazar’s regime

The underground press plays a key role in the opposition to Salazar and the strictures of censors. After walking through the lugubrious hallway of the Estado Novo’s ‘indisputable truths’ – ‘God, Fatherland, and Family’ -, a whole room is dedicated to the clandestine press, which, more than a mere propaganda instrument, was the sole vehicle for denouncing oppression and spreading information about the country and the world from unofficial points of view.

In addition to Avante!– the official newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party-, visitors will find dozens of publications representing virtually all political trends in Portugal during the dictatorship’s 48 years, from radical left movements to far-right groups. Radio is also present, with broadcasts from the opposition’s radio stations, such as Portugal Livre [Free Portugal] or Voz da Liberdade [Voice of Freedom].

The photographic memory of the oppression and of the conditions under which clandestine meetings were held, articles were written, and underground newspapers were printed, extol the courage and ingenuity of those who dared to resist.

The prison’s ‘stalls’

The regime’s violent and oppressive nature materializes in its prisons, both in Portugal and in the overseas colonies. An ecclesiastical prison until the mid-nineteenth century, then a women’s prison, Aljube became a penal institution for the Miltary Dictatorship’s political and social prisoners in 1928 and was finally handed over to the political police as its prison of choice. Like other fascist prisons, Aljube bore the mark of the regime’s oppression and arbitrariness.

After long periods of interrogation, torture and humiliation, prisoners would arrive at the building, located on Augusto Rosa Street, where they would be locked up in the so-called stalls, or ‘drawers’. Originally, there were 14 of these dark, virtually airless one-meter-wide and two-meter-long cells. Four cells were rebuilt for the museum, where it is possible to experience the suffocating sensation prisoners felt even without entering those ‘stalls’.

In fact, it’s not easy to imagine what it would be like to be there, even for an hour, in complete isolation. Domingos Abrantes, a communist leader, was isolated in a stall for six months. Lino Lima, another prominent oppositionist, compared them to sarcophagi. The late MPLA leader Joaquim Pinto de Andrade described his experience to a Plenary Court in 1971, saying he had been “thrown into a narrow pen… where light and air entered through a 15-cm-wide and 20-cm-long opening, filtered through two iron doors and a hatch, which was permanently closed.”

Luís Farinha points out a curious fact: the cells are so small and claustrophobic that lamps on the ceiling tend to burn out in a few hours.

After the War, the Revolution

Colonialism and the anti-colonial struggle are the main features of the museum’s third floor. Salazar resists the unstoppable debacle of European empires by throwing Portugal into a war effort that marks the beginning of the end of the regime. From 1961 to 1974, a gagged country embarks on a war that would scar a whole generation of Portuguese and African young men.

Finally, April arrives. Preceded by a memorial (under construction) with the names of resistance victims – ‘Those whom we lost along the way’ – and by the epigraph ‘Democracy’, a room celebrates the ‘Captains’ and the April 1974 revolution. With an entire wall lined with red carnations.

A living museum of memories

Endowed with a documentation center that will offer a vast bibliographical and archival collection on various aspects of the resistance to the Estado Novo, the top floor of the museum features a pleasant cafeteria overlooking the river and a small auditorium.

According to the museum’s director, “starting in September, the auditorium will host several cultural initiatives. At the end of September we will launch the museum’s Gatherings, with talks by former political prisoners and film screenings. And in October, on Fridays, we will have a Protest Musicprogram, with performances by ‘baladeiros’.”

The Museum is still a work in progress. And it will continue to be so. According to Luís Farinha, “we want people who experienced the dictatorship to keep coming here and to enrich this collective museum with their own memories and collections.”

So that we don’t lose the freedom and democracy for which so many people fought.

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