The first issue of the annual magazine «Arade», edited by the Municipal Archive of Lagoa, presents 15 articles by 16 authors, covering themes of Lagoa's history from the Middle Ages to the present. Some are almost unpublished topics, such as the article on slavery in the municipality.
Its launch, on the terrace of the Archive, overlooking the Igreja Matriz de Lagoa, was a pretext for the mayor Luís Encarnação to remember the history of the building, which was built in 1887 to be the first water tank in the village at the time.
«At the time, the water was in Poço Partido and it was necessary to bring it here. Now that we are experiencing a drought, it is much more complex to resolve the situation, but the water is in Praia do Carvoeiro, it is in the sea», stressed the mayor, alluding to the project to build a desalination plant to serve the Algarve, but whose location has not yet been chosen.
The mayor added that, between 1983 and 1996, the building housed the Municipal Library, until it moved to adjoining premises, in the old (and never finished) theater. It was only in 2002 that what started as a water tank became the home of the Municipal Archives.
Luís Encarnação just forgot that, in the meantime, in the late 70s, there was a dream of creating the Lagoa Archeology Museum in this building, which came to have a project, by the architect and archaeologist Mário Varela Gomes. The highlight of this never completed museum would be the menhirs of Caramujeira, excavated a few years earlier in a sandpit in that area of the county and considered one of the most important sets of megalithic monuments ever discovered in Portugal. The museum's dream never materialized, which could justify the mayor's oblivion.
But back to the Municipal Archive: soon, this structure will have to increase its facilities, since, as the mayor underlined, «we no longer have space to store everything we have, either from the collection of the Chamber itself, or from the that has been given to us”.
Luís Encarnação highlighted two of these donations, stressing that the Municipal Archives team is “committed to treating and cataloging them”: the spoils of the Panificadora da Senhora da Luz and the Adega Cooperativa de Lagoa. Both have to do with the «history and identity» of Lagos.
Returning to the magazine: Diogo Vivas, director of the Municipal Archive, stressed that he would like «Arade not to be limited to the publication itself, but to function as a space for investigation, debate and reflection».
For now, the topics are limited to the municipality of Lagoa, but Diogo Vivas expressed the desire to extend them to the entire Algarve. «Arade is available to discuss local and regional history, but also to think about municipal archives and libraries and, if I may be provocative, museums», he also wrote in the editorial of the new magazine.
The publication was presented by António Maranhão Peixoto, former director of the Municipal Archive of Viana do Castelo, who classified the magazine as «a new flower in the garden of knowledge».
And because in 2023 the 250th anniversary of the creation of the municipality of Lagoa (which separated from the term of Silves) is celebrated, it became known that next year has some good news: in June, the commemorative exhibition of the 20th anniversary will be inaugurated from the Municipal Archive, shows that it will last until September, when the second issue of the magazine «Arade» will be launched.
Even earlier, on the 16th of January, when the two and a half centuries of existence of the municipality are completed, the work “Inventory of Sources for the History of Lagoa” will be launched, also under the responsibility of the Archive.
But, in 2023, there will still be other milestones to be noted, such as the 100th anniversary of the purchase, by the Câmara de Lagoa, of the former Convento de S. José, and the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of the works to adapt this building to a Cultural Centre.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação and Lagoa City Council
Comments