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Lisbon City Council rebuffs Assembly and will approve controversial hotel in Chiado

21 February 2017

The project envisions a “contemporary reinterpretation” of a 1970s building in the Pombaline style, also decorated with tiles by António Vasconcelos Lapa.

Last March, deputies of the Municipal Assembly voted nearly unanimously on a document recommending that the city council not authorize the transformation of a 1970s building, located in Chiado, into a hotel with Pombaline aesthetics, as proposed by a real estate investment firm. This recommendation came about after a public petition against the development collected 1,235 signatures in just a few days. The PCP [Portuguese Communist Party] and the BE [Left Block] had already presented similar initiatives in February, which were also approved by large majorities.

The city council, however, has rebuffed these petitions and it is expected that the project will be approved in a closed meeting this Thursday, July 22.

As PÚBLICO reported in February, the developer intends to transform the building number 20 in the Largo Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and another one, located right next door, into a five-star hotel. To this end, it is proposing that the current modernist aesthetic of the building – built between 1974 and 1977 for the insurance company Império – be replaced by “an architectural design that blends in with the surrounding buildings” and reflects a “contemporary reinterpretation” of Pombaline architecture.

In addition to the major changes to the exterior of the building, the proposal would also remove 33 panels of tiles that the ceramist António Vasconcelos Lapa designed for the facade. Faced with the doubts raised by the Resident Consultative Structure of the Municipal Master Plan regarding the removal of the tiles, the city council asked – and the developer accepted – that the panels be relocated to an areas within the future hotel.

But the deputies of the municipal assembly recommendations went further. “The city is not just ‘neo-Pombaline’, and we do not want to transform Lisbon into a Pombaline Disney. We want the cities urban environment to reflect architectural interventions made throughout its long history, without forgetting interventions made in more recent times, “wrote Simonetta Luz Afonso, a PS [Socialist Party] representative, who prepared a report on the petition. This document was unanimously approved by the deputies on the Town Planning and Culture committees of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly.

In the report, the Socialist Party member deemed that the current building is “very well integrated” with the surrounding area and, therefore, “there is no need to dress it up in any postmodern pseudo-historical clothing.” She added: “It is our duty to preserve this historical structure, making sure that the building will keep its original design, maintaining the decorative tiles that integrate the rhythmic and chromatic composition of its facade so well. Surely it’s possible to make functional adaptations to the hotel, without altering its architectural and decorative features. ”

Original Story: Público – João Pedro Pincha

Photo: Nuno Ferreira Santos

Translation: Richard Turner