Local Traditions of the Built Environment and National Imagination: The Case of the Algarve, South Portugal, in the 20th Century

Abstract

In the first half of the 20th century, the Algarve’s built-environment singularities were useful in both Estado Novo nationalistic constructs and Portuguese architectural modernism’s project; but what was the role of local agency and politics in the process? This paper focuses on the fishing and canning-industry town of Olhão: a unique “Moorish-like” townscape made to represent the entire region in state propaganda, its presumed traditional features were translated into government infrastructure programmes, from low-budget housing to school building. Yet this was not merely a top-down construct: questioning superficial assertions of the reach of central dictums on regional style, I investigate the role of local actors in creating, supporting and sometimes resisting their building customs to offer a more comprehensive reading of the politics of tradition in a specific context.