Middle-class mass housing between city and suburb: The case of Quinta das Lavadeiras

Abstract

In the mid-1950s, millions of people left the rural areas of the Portuguese interior. They came to Lisbon in search of new and better living conditions. The population growth in the peripheral territories of the capital started to increase exponentially, completely changing its landscape, particularly on the northern fringe, with a huge impact on commuter traffic flows and property speculation, affecting an emerging middle class that was ignored by the state and exploited by an economically-driven market. Outside the narratives of high culture, these places have progressively embodied the image of postmodernity’s greatest evils: the anonymous character of (sub)urban life, mass housing and the ‘motorway’. Their study has been overlooked and, consequently, an important part of the city’s fabric. Using unpublished archival material, films and period news, this article reconstructs the history of the urban ensemble of Quinta das Lavadeiras on calçada de carriche, Lisbon’s northern gateway, developed during the 1960s by private developers. The crossing of information regarding the project, its construction and its impact on the landscape, in its intermediate condition, between rural and faith in urban progress, between centre and suburb, between social classes, allows a critical reflection on the divorce between the theoretical debate and the construction of a counter-architecture promoted by construction companies that acted in these expectant territories, defining them.