Restelo neighbourhood: urban form and sustainability

Abstract

The territory in our days called Restelo is a testimony of distinct urbanistic essays that took place throughout the twentieth century in one place of the city of Lisbon. The “neighbourhood” is the result of the sum of a variety of "parts of neighbourhoods", representing more than fifty years of opportunities offered to Portuguese architects and urban planners to put into practice models of cities once developed. Behind Jerónimos Monastery it is possible to identify the influence of the Garden City, but also to recognize the inspiration of Parisian boulevards and the desire to practise the Modernity. With the advent of scientific research in Architecture and Urbanism at the Portuguese National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, the contacts established between researchers and foreign research centres were reflected in the subsequent work developed in liberal profession, particularly in Restelo by the architect Nuno Portas. We refer to the volumetric experimentation of different urban solutions as a response to the density problem.
Restelo integrates a handful of contributions from the History of Architecture, Urbanism and Scientific Research in Architecture and Urbanism in Portugal. Restelo witness problems that affect many neighbourhoods and cities and call into question socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. This article identifies the urban models applied in Restelo and promotes a reading about any impacts associated with socioeconomic and environmental issues nowadays.