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Gabriel de Oliveira's 'Há Festa na Mouraria' and the "Fado Novo's" Criticism of the Estado Novo's Demolition of the Baixa Mouraria

2004; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/port.2004.0003

2222-4270

Michael Colvin,

History, Culture, and Society

Gabrielde Oliveira's'Há Festana Mouraria'and theFado Novo's Criticism oftheEstadoNovo's Demolition oftheBaixa Mouraria MICHAEL COLVIN The EstadoNovo's plansforurbanrehabilitation inLisbon,1 carried out byDuartePacheco's'Plano de Urbanizaçãoe Expansãoda Cidade' and Fariada Costa's 'Salvação Barreto'programme, justified thedemolition ofhistoric neighborhoods 'condemned toprogress', including thecapital's oldestdistricts: Mourariaand Alfama.2 However,just beforeSalazar's death,in 1969,and theconsequent shift in politicalregimeas Portugal advancedtoits25AprilRevolution, theSalvaçãoBarreto project hadlost itsmomentum. Although as earlyas 1940,nationalattention focusedon therestoration oftheSé and theTorrede Belém,theCâmaraMunicipal deLisboadidnotproposea plantoprotect Lisbon'sarchitectural heritage until1967.3Bythen,thelowerMourariahad suffered theblowsof the Estado Novo's progress.Plans to widen Rua da Palma and Avenida Almirante Reis- first presented in 1852- wererealizedin the1930s.4 Betweenthe 1930s and 60s, the lowerMouraria was demolished:the palace oftheMarquesde Alegrete in 1946;theApollo Theatrein 1949; thechurch ofSocorroandthebuildings tothewestofRua da Mourariain 1956. In 1961,Lisbonersreactedto Salvação Barreto'sneglectof the 1Gabriel de Oliveira, 'Há Festana Mouraria'. MarinaTavares Dias,LisboaDesaparecida, 8vols(Lisbon: Quimera, 1998), i,19,signals the EstadoNovo's euphemism of progress: '"Recuperação" é termoque o EstadoNovo não utilizava porquea "filologia" vigente considerava a cidadeantiga comoumsuceder de bairros "condenados ao progresso".' DuartePacheco(1900-43)served as President oftheCML and Minister ofPublic Works between 1938andhisaccidental deathin1943.Urbandeveloper, E. de Gröer, served as hisconsultant (1938-40).SeeJoséAugusto França, Lisboa.Urbanismo e Arquitectura (Lisbon: Instituto deCultura e Língua Portuguesa, 1980), pp.105,131;Dicionário da História deLisboa,ed.byFrancisco Santana andEduardo Sucena(Lisbon: CarlosQuintas, 1994),p. 676.JoãoGuilherme Fariada Costa (1906-71)was hiredbytheCML as partof anurban development teamwhich included Francisco KeilAmaral andInácioPeres Fernandes, to continuethe development begunby Pachecounderthe 'Plano de Remodelaçãoda Baixa' (1944).See Francisco KeilAmaral, Lisboa,uma Cidadeem Transformação (Lisbon: Europa-América, 1969),p. 121;Santana, p. 319. The 1940restorations coincided with theExposiçãodo MundoPortuguês. The 1967'Plano Director de Lisboa,'proposed toprotect Lisbon'shistoric districts, wasapproved in1970.See França, p. 117;A. Vieirada Silva,PlanoDirector de 1967(Lisbon:CâmaraMunicipal, 1967), p. 23.TheEPULwasfounded in1971andtheSAALin1974.SeeFrança, pp. 120,131. KeilAmaral explains themotivations fortheproject towidenRua da PalmaandAvenida Almirante Reis: Na cidadejá o trânsito ficava 'engarrafado', dequandoemquando,em'gargantas' quenos anosseguintes iriam transformar-se emverdadeiros pesadelos paraos automovilistas e para a edilidade, sobrea qualchoviam as recriminações. Entre as maisodiadascontavam-se a da Rua do Arsenal, a da Rua da Palmae a de São PedrodeAlcântara, (p. 103) GABRIEL DE OLIVEIRA^ 'hÁ FESTA NA MOURARIA' 135 capital's architectural heritagewhenthe Mouraria's onlyextantgates on thefourteenth-century Fernandine Wall - Portasde São Vicenteda Mouraria/Arco do Marquêsde Alegrete - weredemolished. Inthemidst ofthedestruction ofthelowerMouraria,thesixteenth-century hermitage ofNossa Senhorada Saúdewas spared.The hermitage's anomoliccondition ,perchedunscathedamong unsophisticated shoppingcentresand cementfountains- the bleak manifestations of Salvação Barreto's progress - has madeit a symboloftradition in a Lisboncompelledto modernization.5 The hermitage of Nossa Senhorada Saúde and its four-century-old processionserveas leit-motifs in the fado novo of the 1940S-60S, as symbolsof resistance to the Estado Novo's modernization of Lisbon, whiletheSalvaçãoBarreto urbanrehabilitation project threatens to erase theMouraria.The lyrics ofthefadonovomanifest a protest tothedemolition ;theydenouncetheEstadoNovo's conceptofprogress byevoking nostalgiafora pre-Republican Mouraria,embodiedin the hermitage. Gabrielde Oliveirawrote'Há Festana Mouraria'inthe1930s,during the first stagesoftheMouraria'srehabilitation.6 His fadorecallstheextinct procession ofNossa Senhorada Saúde,interrupted bytheFirstRepublic. However,whenfadistas performed and recorded thesongafter theprocessionhad reappeared intheMouraria,in 1940,itwas recontextualized in thememories of a Mourariathathad alreadyvanished:a decadent Mourariacharacterized byprostitution and violent crime.I proposethat Gabrielde Oliveira'smotifs ofthehermitage ofNossa Senhorada Saúde anditsannualprocession in'Há Festana Mouraria'havebeenappropriatedbylaterfadolyricists to denouncetheSalvação Barreto urbanrehabilitation project.I shallexaminetheevolution oftheleit-motifs ofthe hermitage, theprocessionand the historical and poeticavatarsof the song'sprotagonist, Rosa Maria,inthelaterfadosnovos,toconcludethat Gabrielde Oliveira's'Há Festana Mouraria'has inspired a subversive trend inthefadonovo:theidealization ofa pre-Republican Mourariaemblematized bythehermitage and itsprocession - as an alternative to theEstadoNovo's notionofprogress. 5The'PianoDirector' of1967sought tosolvetheproblem ofMartim Moniz'svoid:Vieira da Silva, p.47.In1972, theCML abandoned theplansofFariada Costa,Eduardo PaivaLopesand A. Barros de Fonsecato erecta plaza intheBaixaMouraria.In 1974,theCML shifted the 'PlanodeRenovação Urbana deMartim Moniz'totheEPUL.Between the1970sand1990s the EPULworked withengineer FerroGomesandarchitects Francisco Silva,CarlosDuarteand JoséLamasto replacetheempty lotsleftbytheSalvaçãoBarreto project withtheCentro Comercial...