Case Studies  The Lisbon Castle parish and the urban regeneration process

2. History and decline of the Castle parish

The first settlement of today's Castle area dates from the VII-VI centuries BC. The place remained occupied by several tribes and peoples up to its being taken by the Roman Empire in II Century BC. At those times, the area was a cultural and religious centre. This has been proved by several archaeological finds, for example, the ruins of the Roman theatre, situated on the southern slope of the hill.

In 719, Arab conquerors changed the character of the place by building the “Al-qaçr”, the Arab form of a walled castle-palace that remained the centre of government and military defence. Already at this time, a residential part sprang up alongside it, and had grown close to today's size by the 11 th century.

In 1147 Dom Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal and who gave Lisbon its first City Charter conquered the expanded town.

The castle parish was named “ Santa Cruz do Castelo”; leaving no doubt that the former “Al-qaçr” was now Christian land. The castle parish was one of the first of many future administrative districts within the town.

The area remained, as in former times, the centre of government and military defence of the suburbs and the harbour.

Many of the Arab inhabitants were driven out of the castle parish. Therefore a new neighbourhood was born on the northern slope of the hill; this was called “Mouraria” (the Moorish quarter), which still exists.

In 1498, the idea to build a new Royal palace along the riverside arose. In the beginning of the 16 th Century, the former area of the “Al-qaçr” and the Christian castle lost their significance and the political and cultural centre was transferred to the new city centre, the Baixa , or downtown area.

However there remained some important municipal buildings, such as the City Hall, within the historical castle area and, quite close by, the cathedral as the religious centre of Lisbon .

The earthquake of 1755, however, dramatically changed the appearance of the site.

After that natural disaster, the castle buildings were more or less restored and completed by new constructions to be used now as a military base and prisons, up until the beginning of the 20 th Century.

The city wall still encloses the area as it survived the tremors.

The residential area was nearly completely torn down, as were the surrounding parts of the city such as the above-mentioned “Mouraria” and the “Alfama”, one of the oldest parts dating from the time of Moorish expansion.

All those areas were not taken into consideration by the grand restoration plans of the Marquês de Pombal. Based on the ideas of the Enlightenment, the Baixa was intended to be the new splendid political, economic and cultural centre of future periods.

In the castle neighbourhood people reacted by spontaneously reusing all available leftover building materials brought to light from former times. Within this mixture, they started to rebuild their houses on remaining foundations redesigning an urban web, similar to the medieval one, before the earthquake.

During those times, it was already obvious that the neighbourhoods of “Mouraria”, “Alfama” and the castle were turning into some kind of suburban areas especially in terms of social and economic characteristics, with the poorest part of population remaining there.

In times of industrialisation, those neighbourhoods had to deal with migration from the rural areas and therefore population growth. In fact, they became completely over-populated and living and housing conditions became nearly unbearable.

In the castle neighbourhood, economic activities were defined by the relationship between civic population and the military daily life necessities.

In the first quarter of the 20 TH century, the town authorities became aware of the importance and “new” value of the castle as a tourist attraction.

Therefore, in 1910, the castle ruins were declared a “National Monument”, not taking into consideration the closely situated residential part of the castle parish.

In 1938, restoration works on the monumental buildings and fortifications started within the nationalistic spirit of glorifying the fascist regime and having in mind the “Exhibition of the Portuguese World” in 1940. That special intervention was the last one up to today carried out within the borders of the area in discussion.

Indeed since the 1940s the town authorities, as well as the Portuguese government, have given special emphasis to developing intensive but seasonal tourist activities. This factor contributes to the local population's feeling of being excluded from any progress. Despite being so close in geographical terms, they are only tangentially touched by the defined itineraries of tourist streams. Up to our times, tourism has been the only reason for the area to be frequented to some extent.

The residential part continues to be an enclave with a very particular character, which in the course of time has been driven out of the consciousness and every day life of the city.

While Lisbon has been growing within different concepts and developing new urban central metropolitan areas, the castle neighbourhood has not been considered relevant to this process and, therefore, it does not really benefit from it. That continuing process of falling into oblivion is not being corrected by local or national policy at this moment. The same is valid in regard to all other historical urban areas of Lisbon .

1. The site and relationship to the City centre    3. Socio-economic development of the Castle parish