Apropos of Lisbon´s Modern Architecture (1925-1965)

Abstract

The modern experience in Lisbon (and Portugal) deserves a much wider and better dissemination in international terms, not only because of its own intrinsic value, but also because of its specificity, both of which are much more relevant when one considers the country’s peripheral contingency, the respective absence of any of the main premises that generated modernity in European architecture, the political context from which it resulted and the subsequent socio-cultural conservativeness of the country, the city and many of its elites. Even though there can be no doubt, and particularly so in this century, about the growing national recognition afforded to this modern architectural heritage, as expressed by the legal protection given to many of its buildings (which in itself is inseparable from the fertile research and documentation originating, above all, from the academic community), it is no less certain that much of this heritage is located in areas that are themselves being subjected to widespread and highly volatile processes of urban renewal.