Athens, Greece March 2006 Conference at the Faculty
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JOÃO CAMPOS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A R Q U I T E C T O RUA DE SANTA LUZIA, 181-B 4250-417 PORTO - PORTUGAL - TEL. 351.228329594 FAX. 351.228329596 EMAIL [email protected] ATHENS, GREECE MARCH 2006 CONFERENCE AT THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS GLOBALISATION AND EMPIRES: SHARED ARCHITECTURES FROM PORTUGUESE ORIGIN 52 - GERAL 1 - SITUATION AND HISTORICAL DIMENSION When we speak about the colonial heritage of Portuguese origin we wonder about the number of the specimens, geographically referred. The answer is not easy, because the knowledge of this universe is still very indefinite. Also, after the perception of the grandness of the number, we note the extraordinary movement in which Portugal knew how to be the protagonist, in the beginning of the Modern Times. This fact brings to reality a lot of investigations to make, with very diversified methodological approaches: which are the sites, with its geographical and chronological identification; which are the correlations with the geopolitics of that time; which kind of economic and social evolution occurred in each civilization connected after the Portuguese arrival; what kind of morphology was privileged with the establishment of new urban organizations, the type of management of the territory, the regional role that the Portuguese presence granted in technical, cultural and in general effects; what were the role and the significance of the interaction of the colonial enterprise of Portugal? The greatest astonishment is to say that (at the beginning and during the golden JOÃO CAMPOS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A R Q U I T E C T O RUA DE SANTA LUZIA, 181-B 4250-417 PORTO - PORTUGAL - TEL. 351.228329594 FAX. 351.228329596 EMAIL [email protected] time of its colonial adventure) Portugal had no more inhabitants than one million and a quarter, the majority being peasants of the interior of the country. But the Portuguese succeeded, since the middle of the 15th century, in an intensive activity on maritime trade, supporting a rosary of African cities and islands of the Atlantic Ocean and, immediately after, continuing by the Indian Ocean to the Far East. Since the second conquest of an African city (Ksar-el-Segèr, in 1458), until the first establishment in India (Kochi, 1503) and with the conquest of Malacca, in 1511, that is, in the time of two generations, Portugal was in action in extra- European spaces of three continents: in America with Brazil, in the whole littoral of the coasts of Africa and Asia, while continuing through the archipelagos of the Pacific to Japan in direction of Australia, where (it appears to be certain) it was Portuguese the first European who touched the last inhabited continent. 2 –QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE PERCEPTION OF A PHENOMENON At the end of the third quarter of the 16th century the Oceans were ornamented with tens of cities, warehouses and fortresses built and managed by Portugal. For this conference concerning the Portuguese colonial empire I became aware of a very vast urban production, being sufficient to say that, during the time between the conquest of Septa, in 1415, and the creation of Dili, in East Timor, in 1769, we can note a colonial urban production of approximately three hundred nucleus of different settlements, some of them very wide. It is curious to see that the date of the foundation of Dili is the same as the one of the massive transfer of the population of Mazagan (city started in 1509 and the last one being abandoned in Morocco), in direction at a new place in the opposite part of the Atlantic, while contributing for the spectacular effort of the urbanisation of Brazil. The experiment of the creation of Madeira and Azores (and that it is a fact, in my opinion, with repercussions still badly studied), as well as the design of the Maritime Empire of the East (practised in a visionary way by Afonso de Albuquerque), or the geographical domination of Amazonia (among tens of facts, cities like Macapá, Manaus, Príncipe da Beira, Belém do Pará, or São Luís do JOÃO CAMPOS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A R Q U I T E C T O RUA DE SANTA LUZIA, 181-B 4250-417 PORTO - PORTUGAL - TEL. 351.228329594 FAX. 351.228329596 EMAIL [email protected] Maranhão) and also, still in the American continent, the idea of the “Island Brazil" with the saga of the "Question of the Limits", from São Luís to Colónia do Sacramento (in Uruguay), all are extraordinary examples that make the integration of the built inheritance, with repercussions of the highest scope. Those facts form really part of the conformation of a new phenomenon, which introduced the newest perception of the real dimension of humanity – what, I think, granted a kind of national mission that, in a wide evaluation, still fulfills its role in the identification of the Portuguese themselves. The projection of acting collective memories, in general embodied by the built heritage (and especially in situations that constitute itself shared architectures), it is the essential basis for the balance and the cultural progress of the values of each community and of the very whole Civilization, by giving us the synthesis of the vectors which justify the course of Humanity. 3 – WORKING FOR THE SAFEGUARD OF AN UNIVERSAL INHERITANCE In the disturbed times of the contemporary globalisation that we are living, the comprehension of Portugal goes back six hundred years ago, when a new era was open with the Expansion and the whole appearance of a great geography, in all its embraces and derivations. Like a national raison d'être, the Portuguese historical identification passes by an effort that consider the valorisation of shared inheritances, while betting inevitably on the development of intercultural bonds with the places of the Diaspora, and by privileging the people that are the holders of those legacies of Portuguese origin. From my experience as a Consultant and Architect of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, I will show some cases that can perhaps introduce to you a vision of a very demanding work of international co-operation, by considering the safeguard of a common patrimony of the cultural History of various countries in the world. It is curious to verify that the first intervention of the Foundation in these matters is practically contemporary to its constitution: in 1958/60, at the time of the transition of Kenya to independence, the restoration of the fortress of Mombassa JOÃO CAMPOS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A R Q U I T E C T O RUA DE SANTA LUZIA, 181-B 4250-417 PORTO - PORTUGAL - TEL. 351.228329594 FAX. 351.228329596 EMAIL [email protected] was supported. The persistence in this line of work has its current expression with the processes in progress in Iran, in Morocco and in Senegal and also, if the preliminary discussions are successful, in Sri Lanka and in Ethiopia. A program like this is widened each time in such a diversified geography, already taking into account interventions in Latin America (Brazil and Uruguay), in Africa (Morocco, Benin, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya), in Asia (India, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Iran), and in Europe (Netherlands and Malta). The cases I bring illustrate very well what I have just said and I will show you some pictures. As a kind of epilogue, and talking again about the question of the dissemination of urban and architectural productions (and consequent realization of an inheritance to be divided with the world, that is to say, with the Empire), I want to introduce you to new problems. In truth, because and due to an open relation with the Portuguese Empire, it was created a new architecture in the insular Portugal (those of the "Empires" of the Holy Spirit of Azores). The same can be said about what happened with the turned-over blacks and half-breeds of Benin, in Ouidah or Porto Novo (note that this name still belongs to the Portuguese language), when they made, one hundred years ago, new buildings for their African mosques, directly starting from the colonial models of the large Portuguese churches of Brazil, which were built by slaves and half- breeds coming before from the Gulf of Guinea. 53 - QUÍLOA 4 - THE FIRST EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTION IN THE EAST In his voyage to India, during which Brazil was officially found, Pedro Álvares Cabral touched Quíloa, in July 26th of 1500. In 1502, in the return voyage of its second stay in the East, Vasco da Gama collected the first gold tribute of the local Lord for King Manuel: it was this gold that was used to make the monstrance of Belém, the masterpiece of the European goldsmithery of the time. JOÃO CAMPOS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A R Q U I T E C T O RUA DE SANTA LUZIA, 181-B 4250-417 PORTO - PORTUGAL - TEL. 351.228329594 FAX. 351.228329596 EMAIL [email protected] 54 – FRENTE DO FORTE The small fort was built in August of 1505, during the voyage of the first Viceroy of India, D. Francisco de Almeida, executing the royal regiment for the creation of a logistic network for the Empire of the East, inaugurated seven years before by Vasco da Gama. The occupation of the fort remained only for seven years, up to 1512. What one finds today are the remains of a fort integrated in a vast archaeological site of the Swahili civilization, declared World Heritage by UNESCO (Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara). 55 – RUÍNAS, FOTO AÉREA The exceptional importance of the remains of the Portuguese fort comes from the fact that this construction constitutes the first building in stone and lime that was made by the Europeans in the Eastern and unknown part of the world.