Grid Cities- Pombaline    Português

Grid Cities- Pombaline is a series of analogue photographs that make a visual study of the work of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (later the Marquês de Pombal) and the reconstruction of the city of Lisbon, and the sea port of Vila Real de Santo António on the Algarve.

Carvalho was a Secretary of State to King José I of Portugal when, on the morning of November 1st 1755, a powerful series of three earthquakes struck southern Portugal, demolishing much of Lisbon and various coastal towns, provoking three devastating tsunamis and causing enormous loss of property and life. 

Carvalho survived, and was instructed by the King to take charge of the chaos and rebuild Lisbon and other urban centres that had been destroyed. Carvalho supervised the plans for the reconstruction of Lisbon that had been drawn up by military engineers Manual de Maia, Eugénio dos Santos and Elias Sebastian Pope. Within a year of the catastrophe, building in Lisbon began in the area known as the Baixa, where the streets were laid out on a grid plan with fixed widths for roads, and large squares. The reconstruction introduced early designs for anti- seismic buildings, and pioneered prefabricated building techniques.

‘Pombaline Style’, as it became known, proposed structures of up to four floors with arcades on the ground floor, and an aesthetic style of discreet visual details on the façades, indicating the building’s social hierarchy and use. Pombaline Style was a rational interpretation of the Rococo style, based on the new proposals of the Enlightenment- reason and science, using restrained decoration and azulejo tiling. The Lisbon that Carvalho rebuilt is known as the first modern city in the west within the global scheme of Enlightenment Urbanism.


Grid Cities- Pombaline was first exhibited in the Centro Português de Fotografia, Oporto from November 2018 to May 2019. 125cm x100cm colour prints.

Grid Cities- Pombaline book is available here.

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