Proceedings have formally begun to save a charming, but abandoned, former Lifeboat Station, located off the coast of the municipality of Olhão, as a property of national interest, following the publication on Monday, 30th March, of the official notice opening the process in the Diário da República, Portugal’s state gazette.
The classification will grant official protection to the notable Modernist building, one of the village’s defining landmarks. Olhão Municipal Council and the Institute for the Assistance of Shipwrecked Persons have already developed a joint project aimed at restoring the structure, converting it into a museum space.
The Fuseta Lifeboat Station was built during the Estado Novo period, in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1996, the Institute for the Assistance of Shipwrecked Persons handed over the keys to the Directorate-General for State Heritage, and the building has remained closed ever since.
Interested parties now have 15 working days to lodge objections or submit a hierarchical appeal against the decision to initiate the classification procedure.
Relevant documentation relating to the process, including its justification, official order, and plans defining the boundaries of the property under classification and its surrounding general protection zone, are all available for public consultation.
When the completion of the preliminary architectural study was announced, Olhão Municipal Council highlighted “the uniqueness of its location within the Ria Formosa and its forward-looking Modernist design”, together with the strong attachment felt by local residents to what it described as the most striking building in the village’s landscape.
According to the municipality, these factors motivated the decision to proceed with the restoration of the former lifeboat station, giving it “new life as a meeting point for culture, heritage, ethnography, and collective memory”.
The website of SIPA (the Information System for Architectural Heritage) notes the building’s “predominantly utilitarian character, typical of certain Portuguese public facilities of the 1930s, combined with an expressive use of the formal language associated with the first generation of the Modern Movement”.
It further describes the structure as “a singular object in multiple respects”: its advanced position within the Ria, allowing lifeboats to be launched even at low tide, hence its construction on stilts. as well as the purity and simplicity of its design, inspired by international modernism and particularly indebted to Italian avant-garde and even Futurist experiments, lending the building an unexpectedly sophisticated profile.
Source material: Diário da República
