Lisbon 31st October 1755: the city imaginary museum

LISBON 31st OCTOBER 1755: THE CITY IMAGINARY MUSEUM

Helena Murteira (CHAIA – University of Évora)

Paulo Rodrigues (CHAIA – University of Évora)

THE CITY AS A VIRTUAL MUSEUM

RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT

V-Must, Network of Excellence (7FP) - Spanish Society of Virtual Archaeology (SEAV)

ISCTE - IUL - Escola de Sociologia e Politicas Publicas - Mestrado em Gestão e Estudos da Cultura

21-22 February

City & Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon

consists in a virtual recreation of the memory of Lisbon

as it was before the 1755 earthquake, giving shape to a

laboratory model of research into the city’s history.

It was conceived as the result of the recreation of one

the most emblematic of spaces from 18th century

Lisbon – the Royal Tagus Opera House - developed in

the scope of the commemorations of the 250 years

since the 1755 earthquake (2005).

Ruins of the Lisbon Opera House after the 1755 Earthquake.

Architect: Giovanni Carlo Galli-Bibiena (1717-1760).

Drawn by M.M. Paris & Pedegache l Engraved by Jacques Ph. Le Bas.

Lisbon City Museum

Cross-section of a building identified by some authors as the Lisbon Royal Opera House

(controversial documentary source).

Academia Nacional de Belas-Artes (National Academy of Fine Arts)

Using Second Life® technology, OpenSim version, it was possible to put forward a model of both the structure and interiors of the Opera House as well as its animation combined with a small piece of the opera presented at the inauguration of the building on the 31st March 1755.

The public presentation of this virtual model led to

debate on the study and critical analysis of documentary sources and its selection and application on virtual worlds technology recreations.

It also emphasized the need to extend the research on

pre-earthquake Lisbon.

Plan of the area of Lisbon ruined

by the 1755 earthquake.

Juxtaposed to the old urban layout,

we can see an early sketch of the

rebuilding plan (1756). The central

area of the city extended between

the main square facing the River, the

Terreiro do Paço (Palace Courtyard),

location of the Royal Palace, and the

Rossio square to the North.

Instituto Geográfico Português

(Portuguese Geographic Institute)

Plan of the area of Lisbon ruined by the 1755 earthquake. Detail of an early sketch of the

rebuilding plan (1756).

Demarcated in red, we can see the Royal Palace complex.

Instituto Geográfico Português (Portuguese Geographic Institute)

City & Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon was thus devised as a recreation of all the area altered by the rebuilding plan designed by the military engineers Eugénio dos Santos (1711-1760) and Carlos Mardel (1696-1763).

This area corresponded to the city centre and

extended from the Castle Hill to the East, the Rossio square to the North, the Chiado area to the West and the Terreiro do Paço (Palace Courtyard) to the

South.

Aerial view of the Royal Palace complex.

OpenSim version 0.7.5 Dev

November 2012

This recreation will include: The urban design and the architectonic fabric of the whole

area; The interiors of the most noteworthy buildings; Audio and animation components in order to provide the

background noise of city-dwellers, the recreation of opera performances and other noteworthy Lisbon events of the time;

Small texts providing the historical context; Our aim is to recreate the spatial, architectural, social and

cultural aspects of early eighteenth century Lisbon.

Lisbon c. 1750.

The Palace Courtyard at the eve of the 1755 earthquake. Behind the Royal Palace are pictured the clock tower by the

Italian architect Antonio Canevari and the Patriarchal bell tower by the German architect Johann Friedrich Ludwig.

Both towers were built during the sovereignty of King D. João V (1707-1750) as part of a major renovation program

carried out in the Royal Palace.

Francisco Zuzarte (attribution).

Lisbon City Museum

The first phase of the project consisted in the

recreation of the western side of Lisbon’s Palace

Courtyard (Terreiro do Paço ) just before it was

destroyed by the 1755 earthquake.

Royal Palace (Eastern façade).


November 2012

It includes:

• The Royal Palace and garden;

• The surviving part of the early sixteenth century original palace;

• The Royal Opera House (exteriors and interiors);

• The Street Chapel;

• The Clock Tower;

• The Patriarchal Church and Square.

The first Lisbon public theatre, Pátio das Arcas, was also

recreated according to its seventeenth century layout.

Pátio das Arcas

Galleried auditorium

Modellation 2010

Pátio das Arcas - the first Lisbon public theatre.

Building implantation in mid17th century Lisbon.

Modellation 2010

Royal Opera House – interiors

OpenSim

2013

A virtual museum about the project is also available in

one of the rooms of the Royal Palace.

It displays information on the history of Lisbon and on

the project as a scientific undertaking.

Virtual Museum of the projet

OpenSim

2013

The project team includes researchers in History of Art,

specializing in Architectural History and Town-

Planning, and experts in the creation of virtual realities

and in the application of IT resources to research and

the dissemination of History.

The project benefits from the collaboration of Beta

Technologies, which has worked with other virtual

recreation projects in Second Life® technology, notably

in the Theatron project of the King’s Visualisation Lab

(King’s College London).

Lisbon suffered the impact of one of the largest

recorded earthquakes in history on the 1st November

1755.

On All Saints Day 1755, three strong seismic shocks,

followed by a tsunami and a raging fire reduced most

of the city to ruins.

Lisbon during the 1755 earthquake.

Copper-plate engraving.

According to contemporary accounts, in Lisbon

alone approximately 30,000 people were killed;

roughly 10% of the buildings were ruined and two

thirds suffered such destruction that they were

unsafe for habitation.

An important number of the city historical records,

libraries, art and science collections, money and a

large quantity of goods disappeared under the

wreckage and were burnt by the fire.

The 1755 earthquake in Lisbon.

Author: João Glama Ströeberlle.

Oil on canvas.

Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (National Museum of

Ancient Art)

Downtown Lisbon, the large valley extending between the two main city squares, Terreiro do Paço (Palace Courtyard) and Rossio, suffered the most. S. Paulo, the area to the west alongside the river Tejo (Tagus) was also severely damaged.

The earthquake was also felt in other areas of Portugal

and Spain, particularly in the South, and in North Africa. Several seismic events were reported all across Europe,

from France to Britain, Germany and Finland, making the 1755 earthquake the first to be registered in detail and throughout such a wide geographical area.

Lisbon 16th century

Georgius Braunius (1541-1622), Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1598). Engraving.

At the centre of the image, the Palace Courtyard, the large square built as a result of the programme of works

ordered by king D. Manuel (1469 -1521) in the context of the Portuguese maritime expansion. On the west side

of the square, the new Royal Palace built on the riverside. To the North, the Rossio square.

On the eve of the catastrophe, Lisbon was one of the

most populated cities in Europe, the political and

economic centre of an empire that extended from India

to Brazil and a major seaport with a significant role in

the maritime trading network of the period.

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the city had

undergone efforts for its modernization and the

changing of its image.

When the 1755 earthquake struck Lisbon, the City

Council had exhausted its financial resources in trying

to make the city more convenient and spacious.

King D. João V (reigned between 1707-1750) had also

developed a vast programme of works in the main

square of the city, the Palace Courtyard, and in the

Ribeira Royal Palace complex, following his aspirations

to place Lisbon amongst the most prestigious capital

cities in Europe.

Lisbon in the early 18th century.

Georg Balthasar Probst, Vue du palais du roy de Portugal, à Lisbonne.

Engraving, n.d. (c. 1730).

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (National Library of Portugal).

The 1755 earthquake provided the definitive

opportunity for a large-scale rebuilding plan.

After the catastrophe, Sebastião José de Carvalho e

Melo, Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs and War to

King D. José I (reign 1750-1777) and future Marquis of

Pombal, with the assistance of Portuguese military

engineers, built a city with a regular layout structured

in uniform blocks.

The new Lisbon – 1756

Rebuilding Plan. Architects Eugénio dos Santos and Carlos Mardel.

Lithography

Lisbon City Museum

The rebuilt area, known today as the Pombaline

downtown (Baixa Pombalina), lays on the ruins of the

old city centre.

The rebuilding changed the image of the city

irreversibly. The old Lisbon with its particular

morphological and social characteristics disappeared.

Lisbon 31st October 1755: the city imaginary museum

Plan of Lisbon in 1650 (detail) – The Royal Palace complex before the works ordered by king

D. João V (reign 1707-1750).

Researchers and scholars of the history of Lisbon prior

to the 1755 earthquake were always confronted with

the same problem, the scarcity of documentary sources

and the lack of urban and architectural remains

significant enough to allow the verification of the

information collected in the former.

Plan of the Lisbon city centre before the 1755 earthquake.

Manuel da Maia (military engineer).

Direção Serviços Engenharia, Lisbon


In fact, what was not destroyed by the earthquake, the

tsunami and the ensuing fire, disappeared with the

Pombaline reconstruction or was assimilated by it.

This situation resulted in a knowledge about pre-

earthquake Lisbon, which has until now been

contingent on a high degree of uncertainty, the relative

abstraction of the narrative discourse, the two-

dimensional aspect of the maps, drawings and

engravings, and the circumstances of their production.

Plan of the Lisbon city centre before and after the 1755 earthquake. The

plan shows the old layout in red and the new in black.

A. Vieira da Silva, As Muralhas da Ribeira de Lisboa, vol. I. Lisboa: 1941.

If we examine the documentary sources that were used

as the basis for this phase of the project, the rebuilding

of the Royal Palace complex, we will find that they are

scarce and mostly pictorial material.

These constraints make the research more dependent

on literary sources and the rebuilding plans carried out

after the earthquake.

Ruins of the Patriarchal Church and Square.

Drawn by M.M. Paris & Pedegache l Engraved by Jacques Ph. Le Bas.

Biblioteca Nacional Portugal (Portuguese National Library)

Plan of the Patriarchal Church and Piazza.


Therefore, the documentary information being rare and limited should be cross-referenced with the most recent research on the urban layout and architectonic fabric of early eighteenth century Lisbon, and compared with similar urban and architectural projects, signed by the referred to architects and military engineers.

In order to achieve this central objective, the research

team must gather not only the varied documentation scattered in different archives, libraries and museums, but also the contributions of the researchers on the

subject.

The Royal Palace Courtyard c. 1662.

After the Union between the Portuguese and the Spanish Crowns in 1580, the new king of Portugal,

Philip II of Spain, ordered major works in the Riverside Palace and the building of a Tower.

Architects: Filipo Terzi & Juan de Herrera.

Dirk Stoop. Oil on canvas,1662.

Lisbon City Museum

The Palace Courtyard (Terreiro do Paço) in the 2nd half of the 17th century.

Oil on canvas,1693

Private collection.

Also, a critical and comparative analysis of the documentation must be carried out so that the descriptions of Lisbon found in the written documents can be crossed with each other and with the images.

This will enable us to build a well substantiated picture

of the city’s urban layout, its architecture, the interiors of some of its most important buildings and the most relevant social events.

It is essential that a selection of the documentation

collected and inventoried will be made available on the website that houses the progress of the project.

Lisbon c. 1730

Embarking of S. Francisco Xavier to India

Oil on canvas

Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (Nacional Museum of Ancient Art)

Ruins of the Royal Palace.

Cristóvão Leandro de Mello.

Drawing (china ink).


Not only will this give other researchers access to the

information but also encourage contributions from

outside the team as well as debate about the urban

history and the specific area of the project itself at

international level.

The sharing of criteria and assumptions between the

project team and users allows the distinction of the

different degrees of knowledge that shaped each

element, thus differentiating a plausible recreation

proposal from an exact reproduction of Lisbon in the

first half of the eighteenth century.

Royal Palace, India House (Casa da Índia – warehouses of the Indian trade), Royal Garden, Clock

Tower, Royal Opera House and Royal shipyard.


November 2012

Palace Courtyard (Terreiro do Paço) – Royal Palace Tower and

defensive wall (second half of the 17th century) OpenSim version 0.7.5 Dev

November 2012


The virtual recreation acquires a laboratorial scope by

projecting in a sensorial dimension, through the use of

Second Life® technology (in an OpenSim version) the

knowledge gathered about the history of Lisbon.

Palace Courtyard – Royal Palace and entrance to the Royal Chapel

OpenSim

2013


Royal Palace and gardens, India House and Clock Tower.


November 2012

Royal Opera House (South façade). First proposal (under study).


November 2012


View of the Chapel Street to the West.


November 2012


This laboratorial dimension is apparent in the

continuous process of critical analysis and testing

of the written, iconographic and archaeological

sources through the simulation of the urban setting,

the buildings’ exterior and interior designs, as well

as the spatial, landscape and environmental

context of the built environment .

It is also present in the relationship between the

scientific and technical teams.

Royal Chapel Pateo.


November 2012

Patriarchal Square and Church

OpenSim

2013

In fact, the recreation of the city needs to be

undertaken by a transdisciplinary group of

researchers, and the experts in virtual reality must be

constantly accompanied by specialists in History of Art

so that the application of the information gathered is

kept under permanent scrutiny.

Patriarchal Square. View of the Patriarchs Palace.


November 2012

View of the Chapel Street to the East.

Entrance to the Royal Chapel Pateo to the right of the image.


November 2012

Several team members can simultaneously and

interactively work online in the virtual world to create

the architectonic and urban models.

Each building can be validated by the research team as

to its accuracy, using the documents and sources as

guidelines, adjustments can be made and overseen as

each element is brought to the virtual world and made

to fit into the existing layout.

Palace Courtyard (Royal Palace and Tower).

User avatar and text box with historical information.

.

Innovative and experimental in its conceiving and

methodology, the City and Spectacle project can be

considered as a laboratory in which virtual language is

used a means to broaden and optimise the scope of

historic research.

It allows the results of the historiography and

archaeology of Lisbon to be tested in an interactive and

immersive three-dimensional representation.

Chapel Street and Opera House North Entrance.


Users no longer have a purely contemplative

perspective. They can freely explore the environment,

interact with the model and share these experiences

with others.

It is possible to develop a computer epistemology

applied to virtual historic recreations, seeking to study

past phenomena, and providing a method for viewing

ideas, organizing and summarizing facts, identifying,

analyzing, understanding, representing, and

transmitting more clearly the complex character of

history.

Patriarchal Square and Church.


By means of the ability to project a physical absence in

the world, virtual worlds allow the cognitive to be

exposed to the sensitive sphere. It is a revolution of our

way of viewing, since it suggests that we are seeing

with our own eyes what we can only see represented.

Royal Opera House – South entrance with avatar.


November 2012

We can see that, after going from verbal to visual, and

from analogical to digital, multimedia learning

environments are going from passive to interactive and

immersive, giving computers the power to be the most

important cognitive tool.

The virtual pre-earthquake Lisbon is a notional place,

where the History of Art as an scientific field is subject

to an ordained disorientation, and becomes an almost

non-verbal scientific domain.

Partners:

Centre for Art History and Artistic Research (CHAIA),

University of Évora.

Beta Technologies.

Project available at:

http://lisbon-pre-1755-earthquake.org/

https://vimeo.com/lisbonpre1755








https://vimeo.com/lisbonpre1755

Lisbon 31st October 1755: the city imaginary museum

Documents

Transcript of Lisbon 31st October 1755: the city imaginary museum