Portuguese colonial architecture
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Portuguese colonial architecture refers to the various styles of Portuguese architecture built across the Portuguese Empire (including Portugal). Many former colonies, especially Brazil, Macau, and India, promote their Portuguese architecture as major tourist attractions and many are UNESCO world heritage sites. Portuguese colonial architecture can be found in the plethora of former colonies throughout South America, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Oceania, and East Asia.
15th century
During the 15th century, the
During the 15th century, the Portuguese Empire was expanding and laying its foundations, and the colonial architecture of this period was built following a militaristic and functional base. Most of Portugal's colonies were defended by military fortifications, today the highlight of Portuguese colonial architecture of the period. The Fort of São Jorge da Mina is a well-preserved example of 15th-century Portuguese colonial architecture. Beginning construction in 1482, the fort was, for a long period, the most sophisticated and impenetrable fortification in Sub-Saharan Africa. Like many Portuguese castles and colonial fortifications of the time, the fort was built in a sober and functional style, with an importance more on defensibility that appearance. On the interior of most Portuguese colonial forts of the 15th century, highlights of governor's mansions and imperial administrative buildings included the occasional Gothic and Manueline portal, fountain, or window.
Apart from military architecture, religious architecture was an important genre of interest in 15th-century Portuguese colonial architecture. Religious expansion being a backbone of Portuguese imperial expansion during the 15th century, many of the oldest Christian churches of Africa were founded by the Portuguese during this time. The Cathedral of Funchal, the oldest cathedral in Africa, started 1491, is a good exampled of Portuguese colonial religious architecture. During the 15th century, most Portuguese colonial religious buildings, much like those of military and civic purpose, were built soberly and with few extravagancies. Portuguese colonial churches of the 15th century, however sober they may have been, were the center point of most of the many Portuguese colonies at the time, and thus were usually the most ornate buildings in the colony, ornateness in this period meaning a detailed portal or window. The Cathedral of Funchal best typifies the 15th-century Portuguese colonial church, with its tall and sturdy stronghold-like church walls with a detailed Gothic portal and rose window.
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Tower of Castelo Branco
b. 1471, Azores -
Church of Santo António;
b. 1498, Mozambique -
Church of N. S. do Rosário;
b. 1495, Cape Verde -
S. Miguel Arcanjo Church;
b. 1460, Azores
16th century
During the 16th century, the Portuguese Empire was the largest, and wealthiest, European colonial empire and Portugal was one of Europe's most important states. Within the first year of the century, 1500, the Portuguese had established the
Like in the 15th century, Portuguese colonial architecture in the 16th century was built for the utmost functionality and purpose. Unlike in the previous epoch, however, 16th-century Portuguese colonial architecture did not skip aesthetics in order to pursue functionality, instead it was, for the first time, able to truly compromise the two ideals of beauty and function, an ideal persistent throughout the
Alongside the increased sophistication of Portuguese colonial military architecture in the 16th century, religious architecture hit a level never seen before in the Portuguese Empire. Portugal's immense wealth from its empire, mainly from the spice trade, fueled its historical religious zeal for converting non-Christians. Portuguese India of the 16th century was the cultural and economic powerhouse of the Portuguese Empire, and this, in combination with the Goa Inquisition, subset of the Portuguese Inquisition, created a major court of the Portuguese Renaissance, evident in the enormous and elaborate churches of the epoch. The Cathedral of Goa, the cathedral for Portuguese India, embodies most all of what Portuguese colonial religious architecture stood for. The cathedral was built to commemorate a Christian victory, that of Afonso de Albuquerque over the Moslems, and the edifice is built in a grandiose Portuguese classical style. The high bell towers and detailed portal and windows are typical of Portuguese churches, and they seek to show Christian, more importantly Portuguese, dominance of the area, a major theme of Portuguese colonial religious architecture of the 16th century.
17th century
For the Portuguese Empire, the 17th century was a time of reclamation and gradual increase. After the
Initially, the 17th century was a rough period for the Portuguese Empire, having ended the
Although the 17th century was a tumultuous time for the Portuguese Empire, filled with conflict, conquest, and confusion, a heightened religious zeal arose to support and justify the actions taken by Portuguese imperial forces. Religious Portuguese colonial architecture of the time was typified by grandeur and demonstration of religious importance and imperial wealth. The majority of churches and other religious buildings during this epoch were built in a transition phase between Mannerism and the Baroque. A good example of a Portuguese colonial church from the era is the Church of the Divine Providence of São Caetano, 1639, India. The church, which was a mannerist-baroque crossover, was ordered to be built by Pedro da Silva, Viceroy of India, to demonstrate Portuguese wealth and the integration of the territory as an important Portuguese colony. Many Portuguese colonial churches of the 17th century were constructed to present power and wealth of the Portuguese Empire over an area, apart from religious uses, and the more important the colony the better designed and grander the church or monastery.
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Fort of S. Cruz da Barra;
b. 1612, Brazil -
Church of São Caetano;
b. 1639, India -
Governor's Palace;
b. 1610, Mozambique -
Cathedral of Salvador;
b. 1676, Brazil -
Fort of São Jerônimo;
b. 1614, India -
Church of N. S. do Pilar;
b. 1696, Brazil -
São Bento Monastery
b. 1633, Brazil
18th century
The 18th century was an epoch a great expansion in the Portuguese Empire. In Portuguese America, the State of Brazil and the State of Maranhão expanded westward, leading to the restructuration of Maranhão into the mega-colony State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, in 1751. In 1772, Portuguese America, once again, expanded and restructured, splitting the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão into the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro and the State of Maranhão and Piauí. Meanwhile, the Colony of Santíssimo Sacramento was disputed between the Portuguese and the Spanish for the major part of the century, creating uneasy conditions in that colony. In Portuguese India, territorial conquest and diplomacy created the Colony of Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli, 1779. In Portuguese Africa, imperial holdings expanded up the eastern continental coast with the reconquest of Mombaça, 1728, which had been lost in 1698. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake devastated the Kingdom of Portugal and its capital of Lisbon, and thus most imperial funds went to metropolitan Portugal to rebuild the wrecked capital and its realms. The loss of some funds hindered Portuguese colonial architecture in the 18th century initially, but the great gold mines of Portuguese America, and the lucrative slave trade of Portuguese Africa, allowed a period of relative wealth and fostered the arts.
During the 18th, Portuguese colonial military architecture grew at a steady rate, with scientific breakthroughs and engineering advancements, but it is overshadowed by the new height for Portuguese Colonial civic architecture, which expanded due to the time of peace and great wealth for the Portuguese Empire. During the epoch,
Similar in Portuguese colonial civic architecture, the religious counterpart largely used the Northern Portuguese Baroque style as the basis for most architectural projects. Colonial churches of the era saw a period of never before seen lavishness and excess. Richly ornate Baroque exteriors of grey and brown stone on white washed walls were equaled in high design with their gold
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Ouro Preto City Hall;
b. 1780, Brazil -
Church of S. Domingos;
b. 1707, Macau -
Palace of the Governors;
b. 1714, Brazil
19th century
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Cabo Verde
20th century
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Bolama City Hall
b. 1919, Guinea-Bissau -
Venilale School;
b. 1933, East Timor -
Maputo City Hall;
b. 1947, Mozambique -
High School in Maputo;
b. 1952, Mozambique -
Abreu Santos e Rocha Building;
b. 1956, Mozambique -
Maputo Central Hospital;
b. 1958, Mozambique -
Praia High School;
b. 1960, Cape Verde -
Polana Church; b. 1962, Mozambique
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Beira Railway Station;
b. 1966, Mozambique
See also
- Portuguese architecture
- Sino-Portuguese architecture
- Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World
Sources
- Hue, Jorge de Souza (1999). Uma visão da arquitectura colonial no Brasil [A vision of Colonial Architecture in Brazil] (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Boxer, Charles Ralph (1962). The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520015500.