Water, street-lighting and sewers in Lisbon at the end of the 18th century

Abstract

Based on the reports of foreign travellers, legal documents and memoirs of a technical nature, a characterisation of the problems related with the functioning of infrastructures in the city of Lisbon between the earthquake of 1755 and the end of D. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho's term of office in 1803 has been compiled. The text has been carefully constructed from impressions and empirical evidence of daily occurrences, which are open to technical interpretation and regulating intervention. The central argument developed is that the reports and views presented constitute a means of identifying the needs caused by changes in the urban make up, and they project intervention models with countless implications of a social, environmental, physical and political nature.