Résumé
The Portuguese Revolution of 25 April 1974 fuelled a period of vigorous popular demand for better living conditions. The early revolutionary governments sought to resolve this social urgency by implementing hurried public policies on a par with those which other European countries had been pursuing for at least two decades. This short circuit between modernity and post-modernity, power and counter-power, culture and counterculture, gave rise to the most fascinating aspect of the Portuguese revolutionary process.
No policy was more marked by this fascination and volatility than the SAAL (Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local) created in July 1974 by the architect Nuno Portas, Housing Secretary in the first provisional government. The program’s goal was to provide a quick and direct response to the demands of various housing associations throughout the country, supported by local interdisciplinary teams of architects, sociologists, social workers and legal experts: the SAAL brigades.
In Porto, these brigades were coordinated by architect Alexandre Alves Costa, whose strategy focussed on maintaining impoverished inhabitants within the urban centre, in contrast to previous tendencies to destroy the traditional working-class neighbourhoods, and relocate their inhabitants to new peripheral complexes.
Involved in the revolutionary program, Porto-based architects such as Álvaro Siza, Pedro Ramalho, and Sérgio Fernandez subtly combined new forms of housing with the existing urban structures, giving to the people what Henri Lefebvre has called the “right to the city”.
