⁽¹⁾… “And finally made a horoscope for himself and wrote: house of Fernando Pessoa. The horoscope came out very strange. It said: Fernando Pessoa will have a house, called Casa de Fernando Pessoa, on Rua Coelho da Rocha nº 16, in the year of the Lord of 1993. And he said to you, good, then I’ll be there with my shadow. Because he liked his shadow, or rather his shadows. Indeed, when he was at Alcântara Pier at noon the sun projected at his feet a shadow formed by four shadows. But he knew that after he died his shadow would have regained unity, and that at that time he would live in the house of Coelho da Rocha street with all posthumous friends that his posthumous life would have posthumously found.

I’m a future person, I said to you, that’s what my horoscope says, this is my bell. And he felt happy. For you and the Portuguese language. Because his homeland was the Portuguese language.

Antonio Tabucchi

⁽¹⁾ Excerpt from the text authored by Professor Antonio Tabucchi – of 18 May 1992 – Edited for the official launch of the Project of Casa Fernando Pessoa, CM Lisboa.

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And regarding the building located in Rua Coelho da Rocha (16-18) in Lisbon, fernando pessoa’s last address, from the beginning of the project it was necessary to evaluate – right at the first moment I visited the space – to take into account fundamentally the following Situations:

• The advanced state of degradation of the property, which was totally decaraterized, on the one hand due to its abandonment and on the other because of the vandalism that took place there;
• The almost absolute absence of remarkable architectural and structural requirements of the building.

The Cultural Program defined (among others) by Specialists in Matter, to carry out the Architecture Project, proposed the transformation of a housing building (existing) into public space.

A systematic analysis, which led to identify peculiar requirements of the “place”, equating, systematizing, organizing the architectural project, conferred and according to the indications of the Museological Program presented by the realization of the “House of Poetry”, to be implemented in CASA FENANDO PESSOA.

But the intrinsic needs of a project of this relevance and the new function of use of the property have therefore required an adequate addition of the rules and legislation in force in relation to Public Buildings.

In view of the activities required on the one hand and on the other because of the physical limits of the space concerned, it was essential to provide a substantial volumetric and spatial increase, determined in particular by the necessary introduction in the new place of the insertion of the following Functions:

• A Poetry Library – Also specialized in personal studies;

• A Multipurpose Room – Aimed at Exhibitions of National and International character, linked to the various “Cultural Movements of the Poet’s Time” and beyond, as well as welcoming “Experts, Culters of Matter” for the realization of Congresses and Debates;

• A Hall, an environment dedicated to the informative and public service, encompassing the “Casa da Poesia” store;

• The Building was equipped with rooms (mansarda) for performing and multimedia works, and another reserved exclusively for research studies to be carried out for Specialists of the Poet’s “Opera”, and on Floor 2) of the building, were located the administrative offices and an environment for events dedicated to various activities, among others, “music”.

For the reasons mentioned above, the museum program induced that the architectural project should bring down the “whole brain of the property”, an attitude necessary to achieve the “house program” – also due to the advanced state of degradation of a completely mischaracterized building, devastated left to abandonment – but this option triggered in turn the restart of the restoration and continuation of insertion in the design of existing architectural objects/elements (in the building) to requalify and conserve.

These elements or “Signs”, translate into memories, memories, memories, of a life that has passed there, and can be translated into the following:

• MAIN FAÇADE – MEMORIA “GENIUS-LOCI”-
• ENTRANCE OF THE HOUSE AND ITS ARCH –
• AXIAL LADDER – UP TO THE POET’S ROOM –

In merit of the issue “Quarter of the Poet”, the proposal of the architecture project respects the “legacy of the Poet” as well as is in accordance with the Museological Program, excluding the possibility of reconstituting his room, a space submitted to a recomposition architectural and scenographic, linked to his memory an imagined environment to find “Person and Pessoanos”.

The object, main façade, provided the opportunity and method to study the design of the tardoz façade and the façade of the small cafeteria, which came to exist at the bottom of the lot.

Thus the alignment of the façade openings, provided a plastic reading of the property, transparent, continuous and set, not being “MIMESI”, but rather a critical recomposition of the memory of the past.

Furthermore, the option of considering the ladder in the center of the building has become a decisive factor of the “composition”, dividing the space in half, in left and right, in relation to an axial axis of design, providing play with asymmetries, opening spans that translated in environments with double right foot.

Let’s find — full- on the left side what is -empty- on the right side and vice versa successively on the other floors.

This architectural composition allows to increase volumetry and percororable space, while highlighting the dimension and visual vision of the various admirable elements.

The axial axis, where the stairs, elevator and water block are located, is crossed with a second orthogonal axis that defines, in the vertices, the positioning of the stairs of the side spans that connect the library to the reading room on one side, and the exhibition room the multipurpose room of the “MEZZANINO”.

The opening of the architectural space allows us to locate the poet’s quarter – on all floors the “House”, in which the vertical gives us a new scale/extension of the place.

Recovering, restoring, expanding, requalifying, returning knowledge of the “Past” enables openness to humanistic historical scientific research, which contemporaneity requires to respect.