Disaster and reconstruction

In the first half of the 18th century, the profits from the plantations and the gold and diamond deposits of Brazil brought a new flurry of optimism and excitement to Lisbon. Meanwhile, an aqueduct was being built and manufacturing was flourishing. During this time of financial prosperity, churches also were constructed, namely the massive convent of Mafra, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Lisbon. This period of optimism ended on the morning of Nov. 1, 1755. The churches were crowded to honour the dead on All Saints’ Day when the city was devastated by one of the greatest earthquakes ever recorded. Three initial jolts lasted for 10 minutes. Lisbon’s quay sank into the Tagus River. Those who sought safety on boats on the Tagus were drowned by a tsunami. Following the tsunami, massive fires broke out and lasted for days, burning large sections of the city. About 60,000 lives were lost, and more than 12,000 buildings were destroyed. (See Lisbon earthquake of 1755.)

Physically, Lisbon recovered with a celerity astonishing for the time, but the shock left its mark upon the thinking of generations to come. The reconstruction—a good deal of foreign aid was forthcoming—was achieved by Joseph I’s prime minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho, the virtual ruler of the country. He put Manuel da Maia, engineer in chief of the realm, in charge of five architects and soon had a plan for remaking the totally devastated centre of the Cidade Baixa (“Lower City”). The riverside palace had been destroyed, and its terrace was expanded to create the new Commerce Square. Northward from there, a grid of 48 streets led inland to the Rossio and a neighbouring new square, Figueira. The two-story, uniform buildings were topped by two tiers of dormers projecting from tiled roofs. The corners of the eaves, in the Lisbon tradition, turned up, in faint echo of a pagoda. The building style, evolved for fast, cheap construction, was Baroque but virtually stripped of decoration. After the minister was rewarded with the title of marquês de Pombal, the style became known as pombalino.

The Sé and most of the churches were repaired or rebuilt, but the 14th-century Carmel (Carmo) Church was left as it was. Looming from its hilltops over the Baixa, the roofless Gothic shell was converted into an archaeological museum, while its cloister served as the barracks for the National Republican Guard, a paramilitary security force. The Palace of the Inquisition, utterly flattened, was not rebuilt when Pombal enlarged and realigned the Rossio, and on its site, 90 years later, the National Theatre of Dona Maria II was erected. Pombal banished the Jesuit order and transformed their establishment into St. Joseph’s Hospital to replace the destroyed All Saints Hospital. The medical school scrambled for room at St. Joseph’s until it acquired a new building of its own late in the 19th century. The Jesuit novice house was converted to serve as the Nobles’ School. Later governments expelled more religious orders, whose buildings became barracks, hospitals, royal academies, and government offices.

19th-century expansion

During the Peninsular War of the early 1800s, Lisbon alternated between French and British control. When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the Portuguese royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Rio replaced Lisbon as the capital of the Portuguese empire from 1808 to 1821, which enabled Portugal to maintain its independence. The war was followed by 10 years of revolutionary outbursts in Lisbon as liberal constitutionalists and absolutists fought over succession to the throne. Nevertheless, 19th-century Lisbon continued to expand and, by 1885, embraced some 20,378 acres (8,250 hectares), while the population had doubled in 100 years to reach 300,000. Public buildings, such as the new city hall and the Ajuda Royal Palace, had been built, and the harbour had been modernized and quays constructed on land reclaimed from the river. The railway had appeared, and a system of horsecars served the Baixa.

The greatest change in the city, and the one most important for modern expansion, was the opening in 1880 of a new main street—Avenida da Liberdade. The municipality bordered the central six-lane carriageway with wide blue mosaic sidewalks graced with palms and shade trees, fountains, and ornamental waters stocked with goldfish and swans. The street remained the same through the 20th and into the 21st century, with the addition of outdoor cafés beneath the trees.

In conjunction with the new thoroughfare, a series of avenidas novas (“new streets”) expanded the city northward, and new neighbourhoods developed like those that bordered Avenida da Liberdade. In 1901 the electric streetcar made its appearance, enabling more people to live farther away from their employment in the Baixa. Three cable cars shuttled up and down the adjacent hills, and the giant elevator designed by French architect Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard hissed grandly between the city’s upper and lower levels.

New water supplies, augmenting those of the 18th-century aqueduct of Águas Livres, were introduced from Alviela. Consequently, water was piped directly into houses, eliminating the hassle of having to call a water porter.