The Portuguese are justifiably proud of the extraordinary fortification, The Torre de Belem erected close to the Jeronimis Monastery and designed by Francisco de Arruda. It stands on the bank of the River Tagus and the two buildings were constructed more or less simultaneously early in the 16^th century.

It’s likely that as an estrangeiro you will have visited both places and been impressed by what you’ve seen. Perhaps you did not know that in 1940, when the rest of Europe was at war, the area in and around these buildings was the site of Portugal’s World Trade Exhibition. Attracting three million visitors, much of what was erected for that extravagant event has subsequently been demolished. It is well worth commenting on the exhibition itself, the significant items that remain and the architects who designed them.

The exhibition was held in the early years of Salazar’s Dictatorship. His intention was to forge a sense of national identity and promote Portugal’s achievements as a colonial power. Each of the country’s eight main colonies was represented by a huge pavilion that celebrated a mix of Portuguese and local cultures.

Alongside the pavilions, a massive water mirror was illuminated at night, restaurants and gardens with pillared entrances were showcase features; there was a monumental fountain the like of which had never been seen in Portugal before, a faithful replica of a 17^th century galleon and a full-size pagoda. For several months marching groups, acrobats and dancers in national costumes paraded around the specially decorated avenues waving flags and banners.

A favourite gathering place for visitors was located in front of the Jerónimos Monastery. It was an enormous square with formal gardens named the Jardim da Praça do Imperio. This area was newly created for the exhibition, and with its fountains, mosaic coat-of-arms and layout it has hardly changed.

Today the Museum of Popular Art (Museu de Arte Popular) is another remnant that still remains. Designed by the architect António Camelo it was fortunate to survive the period of general demolition when the exhibition closed in December 1940. Instead it was adapted from a temporary pavilion into a permanent museum by Jorge Segurado and reopened in1948. Containing samples of folk art, the examples are laid out region by region and continue to attract visitors, especially the Portuguese. Inside and outside the building there are some attractive original murals in bas relief which give a glimpse into how other pavilions might have been decorated.

Nearby, the Monument to the Discoveries (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) has a particularly interesting history. It is the most visited monument in Portugal but when it was first conceived for the exhibition it was made of fibrous plaster and one third of the size we see today. Like most other items it was destroyed when the exhibition ended. Only late in the 1950s and due to popular appeal was it decided that it should be rebuilt. By then the architect Cottinelli Telmo, who was responsible for the overall design of the stylized caravel and the figures along the prow, had died. Fortunately his drawings survived and Leopoldo de Almeida who had sculpted the 33 figures re-carved them in stone. The engineer António Monteiro oversaw the recreation of a much larger monument and in 1960 it was inaugurated with an interior space that contains a museum, an elevator and access to an upper terrace.

Similar to the 1940s World Trade Exhibition, the Lisbon World Exposition known as Expo ’98, brought together the country’s greatest architects to commemorate 500 years of Portuguese discoveries. Situated at the mouth of the River Tagus with the theme The Oceans: A Heritage for the Future, it has become a hot spot for ‘estrangeiros’ mostly heading for the riverside restaurants, the funicular, the Vasco da Gama Tower and the Oceanarium. At the heart of the complex is a graceful outdoor concrete canopy draped between two mighty porticoes that frame a view of the river. Designed by Álvaro Siza it covers a public plaza, the space so huge and the concrete of the canopy so thin it seems to defy the laws of gravity.

Siza, a Pritzker Award winning architect began a star-studded career at 25 with an enigmatic structure the Casa de Chá da Boa Nova perched on boulders two metres  above the sea  near Porto. He is also celebrated for his construction of the Serralves Museum in Porto. The museum project began in 1991 and took eight years to complete.  The building has literally been inserted into a pre-existing established woodland urban garden. The landscape has been brought inside so that the visitor is offered far more than just the museum’s exhibition.

The other architect directly involved with Expo ’98, Eduardo Souto de Moura chose similar surroundings, when commissioned by the artist Paula Rêgo to construct a museum in Cascais to house her paintings. This was a small fenced forest in an urban area. The minimalist building in a slightly elevated position is configured into four wings with permanent exhibition halls all of which have views of the gardens. Like Siza, he has been awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize and like him was taught by the Portuguese father and Professor of the Modern Movement, Fernando Távora.

Words: Carolyn Kain