Portela (Loures) - History

History

In toponymic terms, Portela gets its name from two Portuguese definitions: portela is derived from a corruption of the Latin portulla or portella, which means small door or entryway, since it can be considered the accessway to Lisbon (and/or south part of the Tagus estuary); the term portela is also, literally a point where a road or street forms a bend or angle, ordinarily in a bottleneck or tributary. Geographically, the second statement is also true, since the parish's northern limits are cornered by two important bends (Avenida Infante Dom Henriques-IC17 and IC17-A1).

Portela's masterplan was deeply inspired by Swiss architect Le Corbusier's utopian scheme of "A Contemporary City for 3 Million People" (1922), and its urbanism based on the premise of a modern architecture that was exposed it to the maximum levels of sun, air and nature (as stated in the 1933 Athens Charter of Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne).

Similarly, in the early part of the 1960s, a development in Buenos Aires had a comparable affect on the future urbanization of Portela; the development was geometric in design, with composite linear roadways around a central centre. In Lisbon, a similar layout was achieved by a New York architect, who was commissioned to construct a development that centred on a large commercial mall in the 1970s (the first of its type to be completed using urban planning concepts in the capital). The idea was to organize apartment blocks around a central commercial structure, in order to create a pole of socio-economic activities. Constituted in 1985, the civil parish of Portela has become a Portuguese reference for urban architecture.

In 1965, a draft plan for the future scheme was approved by the Government, implying the expropriation of five farms which were sharing this parcel of land and supplying Lisbon with agricultural goods. The plan, covering an area of 50 hectares, laid out a vision for a future area with 4500 homes and all sort of social equipments, responding to the big demand of housing for the people who were flocking to the Capital in a high number either from the ex-colonies in Africa or from other parts of the country.

The early residents of the modern Portela were young couples with their children, many returning from the Portuguese Colonies, others liberal professionasl such as lawyers, engineers, physicians, or judges and some older politicians, ostensibly from middle- to upper-middle class. The growth of the region was influenced by the youth culture, a bohemian collection of punk, metal, anarchist and others on the vanguard of the youth movement, who would spend time in the Bairro Alto district, ending their nights in Cais do Sodré, Jamaica, Tóquio or Shangrila. As time evolved, the Association of Portela Homeowners, the parish Church and the Junta Freguesia became more active in the activities of the residents. By the 1990s, the youth movement had moved onto to areas of Alcântara-Mar, the Kapital or the Kremlin. At this time, the Esplanada da Portela (the main strip), with its open-air green-spaces attracted more of the local residents, and slowly the tennis courts and football field were constructed to fix the local population. As the population continued to age, many married and moved away, although some remained in the region while others moved closer to the river's edge, as the Expo 98 lands were repurposed for residential living.