People:
- Museu Serralves (archive creator)
- Artur Rosa (architect)
Title:
Quinta da Bela Flor, Lisboa
Level of archival description:
Project
Extent and medium:
- 1 photograph (reproduction)
Scope and content:
This project series contains one reproduction of a photograph displayed in the exhibit to document the Quinta da Bela Flor neighbourhood, in Lisbon, Portugal.
The exhibit text explained that:
Artur Rosa's project in the neighbourhood grew out of a shanty town, built on a difficult site, dating back to the 19th century, with reports of families living in hillside caves that today flank the entrance to a nearby highway. The process was based on voluntary work, and its ending presented a huge disappointment to the local brigade. In 1976 and 1977, Artur Rosa, also a practicing artist, produced three works that reflected on SAAL, its failure and the subsequent sense of persecution felt by many brigade leaders. The decision not to present the project but rather the artistic interventions aims at revealing the performative nature of the process, its poetic intensity and the way it related to its protagonists. In 1977 the architect presented a performance at the Fine Arts Society in Lisbon in which he closed the documentation of the project in a darkened room. The following year, he presented a structure with the documentation closed inside, and finally he used the project drawings in a collage with photographs on the occasion of the first public tap in Quinta da Bela-Flor. Those poetic artistic interventions are his form of publicly mourning the end of the SAAL process. (The SAAL Process, Housing in Portugal 1974–76)
Artur Rosa worked for SAAL/Lisbon and Central South with Etelvina José, Hélio Oliveira, José Luís Teles Rebolo, José Miguel Fonseca, Luís Pereira, Manuel Coutinho Raposo, Maria Fernanda Carvalho, Maria Isabel Rodrigues Lobo, Nuno Blanco Bártolo, Nuno Martins and the residents' association Cooperativa de Habitação Económica Bela Flor, that was founded on February 13th, 1976. The project included 288 dwellings. The operation began in September 1976, with a construction date in December 1976.
This project series contains a reproduction of a photograph of a model. The original photograph was produced around 1976 and was reproduced in 2015 for the exhibit.
Reference number:
CD034.S1.1976.PR01
Arrangement:
Materials in this project series were kept in their original order.
Location:
Lisbon
Portugal
