August 2017
The monument was conceived in 1939 by Portuguese architect José Ângelo Cottinelli Telmo, and sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida, as a temporary beacon during the Portuguese World Exhibition opening in June 1940. The Monument to the Discoveries represented a romanticized idealization of the Portuguese exploration that was typical of the Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. It was originally constructed as a temporary construction, located in the Praça do Império as part of an urban renewal project favoured by minister Duarte Pacheco, but with the resistance of Cottinelli Telmo. Yet, by June 1943, the original structure was demolished after the exposition as there was no concrete formalization of the project.
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The original structure, which Telmo, Barros and Almeida created, was erected in steel and cement, while the 33 statues were produced in a composite of plaster and tow. Ostensibly a 52-metre-high slab standing vertically along the bank of the Tagus, the design takes the form of the prow of a caravel (ship used in the early Portuguese exploration). On either side of the slab are ramps that join at the river's edge, with the figure of Henry the Navigator on its edge. On either side of the Infante, along the ramp, are 16 figures (33 in total) representing figures from the Portuguese Age of Discovery. These great people of the era included monarchs, explorers, cartographers, artists, scientists and missionaries. Each idealized figure is designed to show movement towards the front (the unknown sea), projecting a direct or indirect synthesis of their participation in the events after Henry.
(Wikipedia)
After seeing the amazing Jerónimos Monastery, I was exploring nearby and stumbled upon this monument. The sculptures were impressive, yet the memorial is now relegated to a riverside park next to a marina. It may have enjoyed a prominent position in its day, but these days it is easy to overlook amidst all the masts of the moored yachts. The tall, white not obelisk/not tower felt out of place.
In a more politically-correct world that presents history in a less-biased way, such a monument almost seemed in bad taste. That carved marble slab may recall a golden age for Portugal, but it signaled the beginning of the end for most indigenous cultures of the Americas. I found it fitting that it was slowly being forgotten along the Tagus River from where many of the caravels set sail. One day perhaps it will be dug up and future civilizations will ponder its meaning. Later humans will assume the explorers are some royal line from the past with a love of sailing. Explorers? That would be the least likely archeological guess.
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