Façade retention in the city of Lisbon

Resonances, history and typologies

Authors

Keywords:

facadism, Lisbon, architecture, urbanism, heritage

Abstract

This article focuses on the emergence and development of rehabilitation operations with façade retention and interior demolition in the city of Lisbon.
This type of intervention, commonly referred to as façade work, became widespread in the city from the end of the nineteen hundreds, supported by a cultural and socio-economic context shaped by legislation. Interventions of façade reconstruction are not novel in the history of Architecture and Urbanism; however, the proliferation of reverse operations is controversial in the disciplinary debate.
This article summarizes, delimits and interprets the roots of this type of intervention in Lisbon, aiming to clarify the motives and context of its vulgarization, including the socio-economic, cultural and normative situation, pondering also on its effects and limitations for the built space. For this purpose, it observes a series of interventions in Avenida da Liberdade, the archetypical urban axis of bourgeois Lisbon. Two chronological moments emerge: the pre-normative façadeism between 1980 and 1995, followed by a post-normative one, consolidated in the first decade of the new century and reflected in the present moment.

Author Biography

Sérgio Miguel Godinho, DINÂMIA'CET-Iscte, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Architect by Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. Internships in Manhattan, New York, and in 2013, establishes his own studio in Lisbon, where he develops projects of various scales and approaches, from: new works, urban rehabilitation, public tenders or project reviews. He assumes the Direction of Supervision and Safety Coordination of several works. His proposal for the new Urban Park in Praça de Espanha, Lisbon, was among the 9 proposals selected in an international competition and won an Honourable Mention in the Municipal Award of Odivelas 2021. He is currently attending the PhD in Architecture of Contemporary Metropolitan Territories at ISCTE-IUL.

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Published

2023-06-30