"Museums and cultural heritage are not for sale!" is the motto of the concentration «of information and rejection» scheduled for Friday, the 18th, at 11:00 am, in front of Fábrica do Inglês, in Silves.
The concentration is promoted by APAI (Portuguese Association of Industrial Archeology) and has the support of the Portuguese National Commissions of ICOMOS and the ICOM.
In the manifesto calling for this initiative, it is underlined that «the process of dismantling for sale of the equipment of the so-called “Fábrica do Inglês” in Silves is in progress».
In this space, classified as “heritage of municipal interest”, the Cork Museum is housed, considered in 2001 as the “Best European Museum” in the category of industrial heritage.
Now, underlines the organization, the new owners of the Fábrica do Inglês building (the Caixa Geral de Depósitos) and the estate of the Cork Museum (the Nogueira Group), purchased at public auction on May 30th, they are «faithful custodians of a heritage of unique contours and of great historical/cultural significance in Portugal, but also affective, for the city of Silves itself».
It turns out that the conservation conditions of the building, which has been closed for several years, are now even more affected "by the careless removal of auctioned equipment", namely refrigeration machines from the old restaurants that operated there and whose removal involved, for example, "breaking walls and doors, not knowing if they will now be reset». This is in a building subject to restrictions, as it is classified as a “property of municipal interest”.
The deterioration of the conservation conditions of the Fábrica do Inglês building, which houses, in one of its wings, the Cork Museum, and of the «museum collection», oblige, according to the concentration promoters, «for reasons of public interest, to rapid clarification by the new owners of the destination who intend to give these cultural values».
"The city of Silves wants to know, the country wants to know, all those who care about the historical and cultural heritage guarded by our museums want to know," they stress.
At Friday's concentration, the motion approved during the Conference on Industrial Archeology recently held at the National Archeology Museum, in Lisbon, will be read, "which will constitute a petition in defense of the heritage and museological values in question."
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