All cultures have their unique moments. And Portugal was one of those moments at the time of creation of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, motor art and culture in Portugal, which celebrates this month its 60 years.
We owe it to your patrons view Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, philanthropist and Armenian origin businessman, who settled in Portugal in 1942, in the middle of the 2nd World war.
Like many who fled the war this time also intended to board the Gulbenkian flight to New York, like Humphrey Bogart in the shoes of Rick Blaine in the movie Casablanca . And Lisbon could have been just that, a means to an end, and it was, but with a different outcome. Despite their intentions, Gulbenkian ends up in the Portuguese capital, taken by a sudden illness, but, above all, pleased with the peace that reigned in Portugal during the conflict.
He established residence in the Hotel Aviz and settled definitively in Lisbon until the time of his death in 1955, even after the end of the war.
the Gulbenkian’s will allowed to create the foundation bearing his name in 1956, choosing Portugal for its fixation , as a thank you for hosting this critical moment in Europe.
This art lover met throughout his life an impressive estate of painting and sculpture, as he will be gathered in one place in Lisbon . It was thus created the famous headquarters of the Foundation, opened in 1969, and a Modern Art Centre, Art Library and its Edenic gardens.
This building, classified national monument as a whole, work three Portuguese architects – Alberto Pessoa, Pedro Cid and Ruy Athouguia – is an architectural reference in Portugal. Influenced by Corbusier and Niemeyer’s architecture, is an emblematic complex sublimely integrated buildings in the landscape and in the middle of its park, by António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles.
Besides being a landmark of architecture it was also an example to follow when it comes to the way ran the project development in the relationship between the designer team, architects and landscape architects, the incessant nine months of work in your ateliers in Lisbon. I venture to say that this was the first building in Portugal where the architecture and landscaping were developed simultaneously, an interesting stage of exchanging ideas and architectural and landscape values, where the creation of landscape did not occur months or even years after the architecture, as is typical in Portugal, but with an intrinsic link between the two areas, where figure a perfect relationship between inside and outside.
the visual axes were carefully studied by the team so that the construction had the minimal impact on the landscape and, in turn, the landscape was designed in order to establish a close relationship with the interior. When we go down the headquarters of the spaces of the Foundation or the Modern Art Centre, the park goes through your windows with all its splendor, calming our minds and bringing us the landscape and aesthetics of nature, as if a screen is it were (making us almost remind the House of Frank Lloyd Wright Cascade).
Similarly, the deambularmos by let us realizing park of the different plans of the landscape and the building of a harmonious way and, at the same time, it seems that we are immersed in nature, as if somehow we did not find ourselves in the midst of the “urban jungle” and the heart of the Portuguese capital. The integration into the surrounding landscape, as regards Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, made through its vegetation, is arranged to have a dim perception of the city around the Foundation, and feel the most of the strength of nature, thus involving the visitor a greater experience release or escape from the exhausting city pace.
This is how we can feel when we visited the Foundation, a fantastic natural refuge of experience, a return to amenizadora peace that usually only found when we move away from the big cities.
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