The expansion works of the Lar da Criança building, which the Portimão City Council approved at its meeting on February 6, may have to be "reversed", since the process for its construction has already been filed with the Directorate General for Cultural Heritage. classification as a 'monument of national interest'.
The Southern Regional Section of the Ordem dos Arquitetos considered today, in a statement, that the works approved by the municipality will "destroy, subvert and adulterate" the original project designed by the modernist architect António Vicente de Castro.
But the Sul Informação It found out, with the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve, that this entity «has already formalized with the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage (DGPC) the proposal for the classification of this building as a monument of public interest». “We hope that, with the classification, there is the possibility of recovering some of the building's aspects, which have been changed over the years”, said Rui Parreira, Director of Cultural Assets of the Regional Directorate of Culture.
The initial request for classification was sent to the DGPC last July, by the Decomomo International, the International Committee for the Documentation and Conservation of the Buildings, Sites and Neighborhoods of the Modernist Movement, chaired by the Portuguese Ana Tostões. The basis for the request for classification, in fact, was signed by this expert architect in that important period of world architecture.
Rui Parreira also told our newspaper that, taking into account the threats that hover over buildings built in the 50s and 60s of the last century, by the generation of modernist architects in the Algarve – António Vicente de Castro (1920-2002), Manuel Laginha (1919- 1985) and Manuel Gomes da Costa (1921-2016) – the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve has already started the process of classifying a series of five structures linked to education and support for childhood, maternity and family, in the municipalities of Portimão, Lagos , Loulé, Aljezur and Olhão.
One of them is precisely the Lar da Criança building, built in 1959, in Portimão, by Vicente de Castro. But there is also the Home for Early Childhood in Loulé (Manuel Laginha), which is the only work already classified, although only as of Municipal Interest, as well as the day care centers in Aljezur (Manuel Gomes da Costa) and Olhão (Manuel Laginha), and the Lucinda Anino dos Santos Social Assistance Center in Lagos (Vicente de Castro).
"The aim is to classify this entire coherent set of the same typology of buildings as a monument of national interest," he added.
But while the announcement of the opening of the classification process is not published in Diário da República, the truth is that the threats remain active. After the recent demolition of the former Estalagem de São Cristóvão, in Lagos, by Vicente de Castro, now it was the Portimão Town Council's turn to approve the legalization of works already carried out, as well as the project to expand the Lar da Criança.
The Southern Regional Section of the Ordem dos Arquitectos (OASRS) was present at the Ordinary Meeting of the municipality to appeal for "non-legalization" and the non-approval of the expansion. But, stresses the OASRS in a statement sent today to the newsrooms, "contrary to the recommendations of the OASRS and the appeals of other institutions in the area of heritage preservation, the municipality licensed the clandestine works, carried out and denounced since 1999."
The OASRS intends to "prevent the destruction, subversion and adulteration" of the building, built between 1959 and 1962 and considered by the Docomomo as "a reference work of Portuguese architecture in the world", "of inestimable value" and "an exemplar of the work exceptional by the architect António Vicente de Castro».
Furthermore, in a letter sent last September to the Mayor Isilda Gomes, as well as to the Algarve Region Coordination Committee and the DGPC, the OASRS expressed “serious and serious concerns regarding the clandestine interventions carried out previously, as well as the project of extension requested by the current Directorate of “Lar da Criança”».
In this letter, OASRS recalled that the building signed by architect António Vicente de Castro is «an example of the historical change in national and regional welfare concerns», symbol of «a generational milestone of Algarve architects» who played a fundamental role in «the implementation of modern architecture in a region where conservatism prevailed».
For the Southern Section of the Ordem dos Arquitetos, the Lar da Criança complex «is a work with multiple references in the critical panorama of modern architecture in Portugal», considered one of the «few examples of Modern Architecture of a social character in Portimão».
The Order recalls that “since the 90s, successive works carried out by Lar da Criança have been the target of complaints, not only by the author of the project while still alive, but also by the current owner of the copyright, the architect Maria Luísa Castro», his daughter.
In an interview with Sul Informação, Luísa Castro recalled that «each time there were more clandestine works in the Lar da Criança, I made an exhibition to the City Council. The first one was made in my father's lifetime».
«They started by closing the ground floor, which was based on stilts. To the east, the building was all loose, but they found a way to glue it to the neighboring Recomar [now Pingo Doce]. It lost all its plasticity», commented the architect, discouraged.
Luísa Castro admits that, almost 60 years after it was built, «there is a need for evolution. But this can be done well or badly, well thought out or badly thought».
The architect was also present at the council meeting on the 6th. «It is not me alone who remembered that my father's work is important. It is an international organization, the Decomomo, and the Order of Architects that ask for the classification. The Portimão Council says, in theory, that it is alert. However, it is accepting all the clandestine works and now it even legalizes them».
Despite the municipality's reservations, the Ordem dos Arquitetos declares itself “available to dialogue with the municipality in order to preserve the architectural heritage at risk”.
The OASRS ends by recalling that «architect António Vicente de Castro names three streets in the city of Portimão and, in 2010, he received the posthumous medal awarded by the municipality for his valuable, innovative and representative work of the architecture of the Modern period in the Barlavento Algarvio» .
In addition, the trio of Algarve modernist architects was the target, in 2004 and in subsequent years, of retrospective exhibitions promoted by the Order. In the case of António Vicente de Castro, the exhibition was on display at the Museu de Portimão, with the approval of the City Council.
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