The House of Democracy: between Space and Power

This exhibition arose within the scope of the protocol signed between Casa da Arquitectura and the Assembly of the Republic, seat of the Portuguese Parliament, for the “Archival treatment of the projects of the Assembly of the Republic's buildings.”

The building of the Assembly of the Republic was stage and scenery to important social movements and political regimes that determined Portugal historical destiny: the Liberal Revolution of 1820, which two years later led/gave rise to the first Portuguese Constitution; the abolition of the Monarchy and subsequent foundation of the Republic in 1910; the dictatorship of the Estado Novo and its end after the Revolution of April 25, 1974, with the much‐desired restoration of Democracy. 

The history piled on the building is also inseparable from the History of Portuguese Architecture. It hearkens back to the end of the 16th century, when the Monastery of São Bento da Saúde was founded, designed by the Architect Balthazar Álvares — and considered one of the most relevant examples of the Portuguese plain style due to the its monumentality and presence in the territory, two factors which certainly helped set up its later adaptation as Palace of the Cortes. 

The stories intertwine over the centuries, stimulating an understanding, an effort to try and think about the very meaning of what political space is in our present time — an understanding that must not be confined to the mere chronology of events. The political system has conditioned, on a number of occasions, the building’s architecture (including the choreography of bodies, and iconography) and the section of the city where it belongs — while architecture has, in turn, contributed to the creation and affirmation of a power or the city as an area of freedom. 

Designed by Luísa Bebiano, an installation defined an elliptical space occupying the centre of the gallery. The exterior skin was divided in different sections (with a text presenting each one of them), questioning the different relations between space and power while crossing timelines in virtual ellipses. On the interior, we found Paulo Catrica’s photographs of the several rooms of the Assembly of the Republic — spaces that often remain hidden —, revealing at the same time the institutional building and the common area of work and debate. 

A sound piece - a curated selection of excerpts of the most representative debates in the Portuguese Parliament from 1974 to the present, from the importance of public housing to the 2008 crisis effect on Portuguese companies - was on loop, evoking the atmosphere of the Parliament in intense days of debate.

And right before leaving the exhibition, the visitors were presented with a mirage - a floating image - of the Assembly of the Republic’s building consumed by flames - an artwork João Paulo Feliciano did for the exhibition The power of art: Serralves in the Assembly of the Republic, at the Assembly of the Republic, curated by João Fernandes.

A small publication, with graphic design by Pedro Nora (responsible for the graphic design of the exhibition as well), was freely distributed. The publication features my essay “The Assembly of the Republic as a possible testing ground of the relations between space and power”.