Case Studies  The Lisbon Castle parish and the urban regeneration process

6.1. The founding

A part of the already described general evolution, there was another reason why especially the Castle parish was chosen for a global intervention. It is the approaching event of the EXPO'98 that draws the Central Government's attention to the city of Lisbon , and in particular to some of its reference areas, making up tourism attractions.

Already in 1985 the Castle neighbourhood has been declared to "Critical Area of Recovery and Urban Conversion" within the wider area of Alfama and there fore in 1995 an intensification of the work on the parish took place.

The plenty of financial resources, available and legislation being conducive to regeneration processes, were favourable circumstances to put the Castle regeneration into execution.

In 1995, the City Hall set up a local team, the Castle Work Group, formed by 3 architects. This group was in charge of neighbourhood management, including planning and monitoring of all necessary interventions. During the process, the team increased and became multi-disciplinary, due the integration of technicians, as there were social workers, historians, engineers, jurists, sociologists, inspectors, budget specialists and appraisers.

Although the Castle area should have been affected by the sphere of influence of the already existing Local Technical Office of the “Alfama”, only a few interventions were carried out within the Castle neighbourhood up to the creation of the Integrated Castle Project in 1995.

6. The Integrated Castle Project     6.2 The programme and the vision