Identity, Continuities and Discontinuities of Portuguese Urban Culture, XVIII-XX Centuries

Abstract

One of the main characteristics of Portuguese urbanism is the adaptation of the urban layout to the morphological characteristics of the site. One may observe the strategies of design involved in that adaptation in many urban layouts, from different times, built both in Portugal and in colonial contexts. In the plans for the reconstruction of Lisbon after the earthquake of 1755 one may find different expressions of the synthesis of geometry, assumed as a regulating principle, with the site and built pre-existences. Subsequent plans, from the 19th and the 20th centuries show a much smaller capacity of articulating the urban layout with site. Modernist plans, from the 1950s, have completed the break with Portuguese urban culture. Although attentive to environmental conditions, there is an estrangement from the logics that structure the territory and from built pre-existences. In the process, the identity of Portuguese urbanism was lost, being urgent to carry out a critical reflection on Portuguese traditional urbanism. Such reflection must be the foundation both for the rehabilitation of historical urban layouts and for the conception of new urban spaces, renewing the links with our cultural identity.