Project Presentation
The Convention for the Protection of World Cultural Heritage, signed in 1972 by a large number of countries, was an initiative promoted by UNESCO and had a decisive influence on the conceptions of the material values that such heritage symbolises and preserves, as well as of the responsibilities underlying its ownership, use and fruition. After that date, UNESCO began to draw up a list of the cultural monuments and sites considered to form part of the world heritage and whose protection it has sought to promote in a variety of ways. The list has gradually grown larger and is still growing. In view of its practical effects, UNESCO decided to broaden the concept of World Heritage to include the most unusual natural landscapes which required special attention. Later, its concern with the protection of heritage spread even further to include immaterial cultural expressions, promoting the drafting of a recommendation for the safeguarding of traditional culture and folklore (1999) and then obtaining the signature of several countries to a Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).
Meanwhile, in 2001, it had succeeded in obtaining the signature of 185 of the 193 member States to a Universal Declaration on Cultural diversity, which established the principle that Humanity must protect all existing cultures, including minority cultures or cultures under threat of extinction. The agreement of such a large number of countries means that there is a universal consensus about the loss that society will suffer, not only as a result of the disappearance of any culture, but also as a result of cultural uniformity, and therefore about the need to do everything possible to guard against either of these eventualities.
The underlying doctrine all of these actions taken by UNESCO, which is specifically enshrined in this declaration, is the principle that “as a source of exchange, innovation and creativity cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”. It must therefore be protected as common world heritage. The obvious fact of cultural diversity must be matched by the promotion of cultural pluralism, conducive to cultural exchange and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain public life. Thus, it considers the “meeting of cultures” to be a positive phenomenon. In fact, the undeniable and always effective interaction among the cultures that have been developed by the different peoples of the world has been one of the main factors affecting their evolution over the centuries. Such contacts have taken place in many different ways. While they may have led, historically speaking, to the disappearance of many cultures, they have also helped to consolidate others and encouraged their adaptation to the new conditions of modern-day life. The meeting of cultures – conditioned in the past by the compartmentalization of territories, the isolation of civilisations and the difficulties of communication – has made it easier to highlight the phenomena of cultural identity and internal cohesion, and to reject the cultures of others, but it has rarely been able to prevent their evolution.
The contacts with africa and the orient, initiated by the portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries, led to a change in the previously predominant system of territorial compartmentalisation, not only because they resulted in new meetings of cultures, but also because they gave rise to a gradual increase in the West’s dominance over the rest of the globe. This, in turn, led to a constant transfer of material goods that was to the benefit of Europe and, from the mid-19th century onwards, to the consequent development and concentration of capitalism in this same region and in North America, along with the West’s technological domination of the whole world. The inequalities and injustices that may have arisen from this must not, however, be allowed to afford a negative interpretation to the ambivalent concept of the “meeting of cultures”, or to be seen as a reason for introducing protective measures that are based on an artificial isolation. In fact, the cultural isolation that prevailed until the 16th century did not prevent the exchange of influences. In some cases, such exchanges took place at the level of whole continents – such as the spread of Buddhism, for example. The West also witnessed similar phenomena. For instance, the acceptance of Greek intellectual and artistic culture by the roman world, or of Slavic culture by the Byzantine world, or of aristotelian philosophy by mediaeval european universities through the influence of the arabs. Other less comprehensive examples of such processes are constantly being studied by specialists, such as the possible influence of the songs of troubadours as a source of inspiration for mozarab carjas (poetic compositions) or the immense contribution that the scientific knowledge of the arab world made to the development of science in mediaeval europe. Yet we might also recall contacts that have had negative effects, such as the violence that has been generated by religious intolerance, the genocides caused by ethnic rivalries, the inferior status afforded to defeated peoples and their submission to situations of unbearable slavery. It is impossible to deny either the benefits or the harm caused by these facts, which are typical of the meeting of cultures. The conflicts that have arisen from this meeting of cultures means that its study has become a sensitive matter; it is a question that must be approached directly and non-judgementally, in an impartial manner and not attributing the responsibilities for past actions to the world’s currently existing peoples. This chapter of history, which is so important for our knowledge of humankind, must be studied in such a way that it can help us to avoid similar mistakes to those that were made previously in the name of destructive intolerance.
In fact, one of the main principles to be taken into account is that of avoiding value judgments about past facts, which is also a rule for historical research in general. The failure to do this has been prejudicial to the studies made of the meeting of cultures initiated by the portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries. The fact that this is considered as the starting point for european colonial imperialism – which, in the 19th century, involved the economic, political and cultural subjugation of the peoples of asia, america and africa – has caused it to be shrouded in the same negative judgment that became widespread in the middle of the last century in support of anti-colonial movements, and which motivated, for instance, several negative international reactions during the celebrations of the Five Hundredth anniversary of the portuguese discoveries in 1998, at a time when nothing remained from the so-called “portuguese Colonial empire”. In fact, the asian and african pro-independence movements of the mid-20th century generally adopted anti-Western political ideologies. The recent conflicts that have taken place in the Middle East have exacerbated the prejudice that results from a lack of knowledge about other cultures. But the evidence of their devastating consequences has also led to the first hopeful steps towards dialogue. It is increasingly clear that the objective knowledge of other cultures is of the utmost importance for ensuring peaceful coexistence between peoples.
Following a period when public opinion was dominated by the idea of anti-colonialism, even in the former colonising countries themselves, the attitude of those responsible for cultural institutions gradually began to undergo a subtle change, becoming influenced by their common interest in the traces that had been left by Western imperialism of its presence in various countries outside Europe. It was found that the contacts that had taken place between peoples had often given rise to original experiences, new architectural forms, new decorative patterns, new literary themes, more expressive linguistic changes and more effective technical inventions. All of this was to be explained sometimes by the cultural creativity of the colonizing countries and sometimes by the cultural enrichment of the countries under their domination, through the formation there of educated elites. It even gave rise to more fertile contacts between them and the development of multilateral exchanges. There was a gradual emergence of research institutes and study centres that welcomed research into these themes, and later of others that chose it as the specific aim of their activities. The post-colonial tension that had existed between these countries gradually gave way to a less exclusive understanding of the meeting of cultures, with greater care being taken in preserving the signs of the sharing of values that had taken place in the course of this vast encounter and in studying the phenomena that this had given rise to from the late middle ages onwards. One of the examples of such a change of attitude was the creation in 1998 of the network of the International Scientific Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on monuments and Sites) and, within this, of the Committee on Shared Colonial Heritage. Since its creation, this Committee has highlighted the risks to which the products of colonial heritage are exposed (many of which are highly significant), as well as the interest that should be shown in them both by the governments of the countries that became independent and by their former colonisers. It has also drawn attention to the need to join forces in order to preserve, study and give due value to the traces of a vast legacy, which illustrate some of the most innovative aspects of world culture.
It is therefore necessary to avoid any confusion of epochs and situations and to make sure that we do not project onto the past phenomena that belong to the present. The study of the meeting of cultures must not allow itself to be influenced by particular forms of interaction or ethnic conflicts that derive from the present, the effects of which go beyond the mere confrontation of ideas and social practices. This is what happens, for example, with the formation of ethnic communities in developed countries, living in the midst of the large masses of non-european immigrants to be found there. The conflicts that are exacerbated by the fact that communities of rival cultures live side by side with one another have given rise to studies and projects inspired by the idea of multiculturalism – some supporting it, others condemning it. And, in the opposite sense, they have also led to a fresh outbreak of racist practices and ideologies. Nonetheless, the meeting of cultures must not depend on the consideration of situations of conflict, whose solution is in fact largely dependent on political reasons.
On the other hand, respect for minority cultures and the strategies required for their protection must similarly not be confused with the utopian creation of a museum filled with archaic phenomena. The “memory” that can and must be created of extinct cultures, or ones that are under threat of extinction, should be as objective as possible. We must not promote forms that result in their being artificially frozen, but instead we must stimulate the development of contacts that are beneficial, constructive and innovative. Just like living organisms, cultures can only survive through a constant process of renewal and through their consequent adaptation to the new conditions of life. In order for this to happen, it is necessary to preserve cultural diversity, which is precisely the principle that UNESCO sought to defend through its declaration of 2001.
This is the context within which we should understand the contribution that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has attempted to make towards the study of the meeting of cultures and, consequently, of cultural diversity, by promoting this inventory of the architectural and urbanistic vestiges of the portuguese heritage in the non-european world. This project, whose results are presented here, is part of a much larger series of activities for the material recovery of buildings and monuments all around the world, including the fort of príncipe da Beira in Rondónia (Brazil), the house of nacarelo in Colónia de Sacramento (Uruguay), the fortress of arzila (morocco), the portuguese cathedral of Safi (morocco), the fort of São João Baptista de ouidah (Benin), Fort Jesus in mombasa (Kenya), the fort of Kilwa (tanzania), the fortresses of ormuz and Keshm (Iran), the church of the rosary in dacca (Bangladesh), the portuguese factory of ayutthaya (Thailand) or the church of Saint paul in malacca (malaysia), in addition to other interventions, designed to preserve other kinds of cultural heritage and involving the building of museums, such as those in Velha Goa and Cochin, or the promotion of the inventorying and classification of archive documents (also in Cochin). However, because of their repercussions, these actions, which were decided on a case by case basis, have suggested the need for a future assessment of the relative importance of the buildings in question, in order to justify the priority that is to be given in the case of possible new interventions, bearing in mind the group of monuments to which they belong.
It is important to know the full extent and range of these traces of the portuguese presence, and to identify the most important among them, in order to better protect them from degradation or possible disfigurement. Although we are only studying one particular area – that of tangible heritage – resulting from the meeting between the portuguese culture and those of Asia, America and Africa, the conclusions of its study can be linked to the research being undertaken into analogous phenomena in other areas (for example, language, religion, food and clothing), making it possible for us to compare results and have a fuller and better understanding of the dynamics of cultural creation and its social functions. The choice of a national criterion for the definition of an area of analysis (i.e., in this case, the monuments and sites of portuguese origin) is not therefore the result of any particular claim to be investigating hypothetical national past glories, as would probably have been the case if this project had been undertaken prior to 1974. In fact, the authors of this inventory are convinced that, in global terms, the traces of this meeting of cultures no longer belong to just one country: they belong to the whole of Humanity because they bear witness to cultural diversity and human creativity. The peoples that reacted to that same meeting of cultures attributed both a meaning and a function to the signs that were invented at that time, whether they were inspired by the desire to imitate or assimilate foreign forms or just simply expressed the rejection of these.
The criterion that the sites and monuments must be of portuguese origin helps to define and explain the process that led to the development of other non-european cultural forms. In order to achieve that goal, a complete survey needed to be made, not only of the instances of pure importation, but also of hybrid cases. This aspect is particularly important in the case of Brazil, which witnessed the development of a style of architecture and sculpture that did not simply copy portuguese models. The buildings that they produced gradually gained greater and greater autonomy, until they reached the point where they obtained an identity of their own. If there is a Brazilian art nowadays, we must remember how it emerged. The appreciation of its values requires us to understand and reconstitute the process of transformation that gave rise to it. The same applies to religious architecture, Indo-portuguese decorative arts, or the military architecture developed by the portuguese in what are now Islamic territories, or even, to a certain extent, to the attempts at modernism that were produced in angola or mozambique and the town planning solutions presented by the architects of the estado novo in their experiments to establish a “white regime” on african soil. In all of these examples – some in a more obvious way, others in a more rigid manner – there were exchanges, attempts, experiments and adaptations. Sometimes the portuguese (or european) model was faithfully reproduced, whether stylised or not, whereas on other occasions bold experiments were made, some of which unfortunately have not survived into the present.
The definition of an area of study based on the national criterion must also not be allowed to afford special privilege simply to famous monuments or official initiatives. Without forgetting the particular ideology that inspired many of them, and which implied a direct statement of superiority, we must also remember the contribution made by the anonymous mass of immigrants who sought, in their exile, a means of subsistence or a possible improvement in their living conditions. Nor must we attempt to conceal the various practices involved in man’s exploitation of his fellow man (such as slavery, for example) and their influence on the creation of signs of survival under such adverse conditions. The meeting of cultures, in which the portuguese played a major role, is a history of light and darkness, which should not seek to make apologies for certain buildings, whether on religious, ethnic, or political grounds. A clear example of the application of this criterion in our work is the inclusion in the inventory of a monument such as the fort of São João Baptista de Ouidah, which was one of the main trading posts for slave labour established on the african continent. Its symbolic meaning far outweighs its aesthetic value. The same can be said of the Prison of Tarrafal in Cape Verde.
The survey of the tangible remains of the meeting of cultures therefore represents an important contribution not only for reconstructing the process that depended on it, but also for assessing its consequences for the present time. In other words, it is of great importance both for our understanding of the history of those encounters or non-encounters and for our understanding of the national cultures that were brought into being as a result of them. This survey must be as systematic as possible, i.e. It must be complete and capable of categorisation. Complete in the sense that it provides a list of all those cases in which there is evidence of an effective or probable portuguese influence, whether this be a dominant or even a secondary one. Capable of categorisation in the sense that it records all those cases in which this influence can be noted, in such a way as to allow us to identify or organise coherent groups of buildings and monuments, and thereby place them into specific categories, which are indispensable conditions for their correct and proper assessment.
Consequently, this collection is not intended to amount to simply drawing up lists for the classification of sites and monuments as world heritage items, or, at a national level, to preparing a similar record of “national monuments” to be entrusted to the safekeeping of the Portuguese Institute for the Protection of Archaeological and Architectural Heritage (IGESPAR), or any such similar organisation, under the various pre-defined categories. The aim of this inventory is to create an object of study, a corpus, composed of a significant group of sites and monuments for the context in which its various elements were created. It will show the different signs that characterise them, either in their uniqueness or according to the categorization of the alterations that they have undergone. In short, it will detail the different aspects that justify their greater or lesser heritage value. The systematisation that this work seeks to afford to this group of sites and monuments is also essential for the study of the phenomena identified in the architectural and urbanistic fields, together with other kinds of phenomena relating to areas such as language, sociology, science or religion. The underlying purpose is to understand the full complexity of the results deriving from the meeting of cultures promoted by the dispersal of the portuguese across the non-european world.
Although the intention is therefore to conduct a systematic survey of buildings, monuments and sites of architectural and urbanistic interest, exhaustive lists are avoided, since their compilation would be a nigh on impossible task if this same criterion were applied to the last of the portuguese colonies. In fact, the aim is not to record all the remains of architectural and urbanistic items of total or partial portuguese origin, but only to make a complete and thorough survey of sites and monuments already identified as such, and which, moreover, are sufficiently relevant to be considered as traces or remains of the portuguese presence with their “own identity”. By sites and monuments with their “own identity”, we mean those that, because of their own particular form, artistic value, functional value, symbolic meaning, dimensions, or technical characteristics, can be considered as places or buildings that enjoy a certain autonomy, and about which there are known to exist (or might one day be discovered to exist) historical references in a variety of narrative or documentary sources. Therefore, excluded from this book are the remains of buildings, sites and monuments whose origin cannot be identified, as well as uncharacteristic buildings that are considered to have no cultural value whatsoever.
An attempt was made to gather together as much information as possible, especially that of a historical and technical nature, about the sites and monuments of some relevance. Priority was therefore given to concrete data (names, dates, events) that made it possible to associate the selected sites and buildings with broader sets of information about the portuguese presence in the world and to reconstruct what might be called “the production conditions” under which those same sites and buildings were constructed. Nonetheless, the aim was merely to compile the available information, mainly that included in specialised publications (in other words, to present what is usually referred to as “the state of the art”), without attempting to conduct any new research. The bibliography presented at the end of each article serves to justify the description provided in the summaries, to attribute the already published information and interpretive opinions to their corresponding authors, and to provide guidance for any possible future research into these themes.
The final result of the work is presented as a “dictionary” of sites and monuments, listed in alphabetical order according to the names of the places where they are located. This “dictionary” is preceded by a general introduction to each of the four regions considered in this book, helping readers to understand the relevant historical and cultural background to each case (general history, history of art, history of architecture, history of urbanism, etc.) And to place them within their geographical, diachronic and cultural context. The “entries” are classified according to their present-day place names, in keeping with the current official spelling of the respective countries, but the “old” names are also shown, namely those used in portuguese documentation and the historiography of the overseas territories from the 16th to the 19th centuries. In the case of sites with several buildings or monuments, some general information is provided first of all, which is then followed by information regarding each building or monument to be found at the same site, according to the four functional categories (religious architecture, military architecture, equipment and infrastructure, and houses), also given in alphabetical order. It was decided to maintain the writing style of each author.
Lastly, a brief reference should be made to the possible problems and difficulties that may be found in the four geographical areas defined in the three volumes of this inventory. The division into three continents – Asia, America and Africa – and an area located in two of them (Islam) arises as a result of practical considerations. It is based on the fact that each of these areas has predominant features that are different, although not exclusive, which, in turn, explains the choice of the specialised coordinators invited to supervise the works and their distribution. There is a certain logic behind this division. The Islamic area includes the first buildings of Portuguese origin to be constructed outside the European continent. Considering that these first contacts were mainly of a military nature, there is a predominance of fortresses and fortifications from the 15th and 16th centuries, including those built in morocco and in the rest of the Mediterranean world and the Persian Gulf.
The volume devoted to asia brings together the heritage built under the auspices of the portuguese State of India and that which depended, from a religious point of view, on the Padroado Português do Oriente (the portuguese ecclesiastical patronage of the east), not only within the peninsula of Hindustan (the Indian subcontinent) itself, but also at the Portuguese settlements and trading posts that were created within its sphere of influence. Also associated with this is the heritage that would later on have its own distinct features, arising from a profound change in the historical conditions under which portuguese administration continued to be applied in that region, as was the case with macao and timor. The predominant historical period is the 16th and 17th centuries, but various circumstances (such as the continuation of the Padroado, for example) led to significant changes in increasingly smaller areas, leaving evidence of buildings in many areas that may have either erased or concealed an earlier portuguese influence there.
In Brazil and the Colónia de Sacramento (in present day Uruguay), which ended up representing the only examples of the portuguese presence in america, the greater intensity of building in the 17th and 18th centuries – with almost entirely faithful reproductions of portuguese models – the region’s initial sugar production, subsequently followed by the mining of gold and diamonds, became the background for the creation of entire portuguese communities and the adoption of administrative systems similar to those found in portugal, with variants arising from the large-scale exploitation of slave labour, the war against the dutch and the French, and the continued presence of the royal court there until the very eve of independence.
Finally, in sub-Saharan Africa there are more or less isolated remains of coastal trading posts and fortresses, mainly built to provide support for ships sailing to and from India, and later used for the capture of slaves. But it is not these constructions that define the global sense of the portuguese colonial heritage in the region. The penetration deeper inland was a belated phenomenon. The territory was to become marked by the portuguese presence only from the 19th century onwards, firstly with the military occupation of the river valley, and then with the establishment of colonial structures designed to guarantee the exploitation of the region’s natural resources, especially in the form of raw materials, as also happened in the other european colonies of the african continent. Although, in the final decades of the portuguese occupation of africa, some attempts were made to create the structures necessary for the implantation of an eventual “white regime”, the colonial war completely frustrated such plans. But there are still all kinds of significant traces of the portuguese presence to be found there. Without ever producing works with an architectural value that could be considered equivalent to that of so many of the portuguese monuments in the orient or in Brazil, and displaying all the hallmarks of the sometimes excessive control exercised by the portuguese government, there were still a number of interesting buildings constructed there, inspired by the architectural movements of modernism, art deco, art nouveau, or modern architecture. For ideological reasons, the independent governments of Angola and mozambique did not always afford these buildings the level of appreciation that they deserved.
The disturbances brought by the colonial war and by the difficulties that the present-day governments subsequently had in establishing themselves led to the creation of certain obstacles that now make it impossible for us to have full and complete access to information about the conditions under which some buildings and monuments of portuguese origin were created, as well as about their current state of repair. For this reason, there may be a need to update some of the information included in the volume about Africa. But the same situation is also to be noted, for different reasons, in the case of the volume that is dedicated to Asia. In fact, conducting a complete survey would also require the direct examination of many places where one can find traces of the portuguese presence that have not yet been identified. Such an undertaking is, however, beyond the scope and stated aims of this present work, because it would require us to carry out entirely new research into this area. As explained above, this inventory is merely intended to provide a synthesis of the research that has already been undertaken.
Moreover, in a work of this kind, the gathering together of information is always a provisional matter. The fact that the aim is to draw up a complete inventory inevitably leads to the appearance of new data, a broadening of the research field and even the alteration of the selection criteria. New documents are discovered, archaeological excavations are carried out and reveal new data, while some traces and remains of buildings and monuments might even disappear as a result of armed conflicts, natural disasters or a certain negligence in their preservation. A printed “dictionary” is static work. It quickly becomes out-of-date, if not in its entirety, at least in an unpredictable portion of its details. It was with this in mind that the organizers of this inventory/work “Heritage of Portuguese Origin in the World – Architecture and Urbanism” decided to create a web-site were all the materials could be included. Beyond making its contents that much more accessible, it will also allow a constant improvement and updating of all the information stored there.
José Mattoso
Chairman of the Editorial Board and Director of the printed version