The Movimento Pela Fábrica civic group has criticised Faro Council for failing to present a clear plan for the region’s iconic Fábrica da Cerveja, warning that closing the 1930s period building without a project set out for its future could put the public asset at risk.
In a statement issued today, 21 September, the group of interested parties said recent comments by the Mayor of Faro had done little to clarify questions raised about the future of the property. The group also rejected the idea that relocating the Associação Recreativa e Cultural de Músicos (ARCM) should be presented as a solution for the building.
“The Movimento Pela Fábrica welcomes the continuation of ARCM’s activities and the holding of events at other venues, but strongly rejects the closure of the Fábrica without a future, without a project and without a plan,” the statement reads.
The platform, which describes itself as civic and non-partisan, is based in the Algarve and brings together 42 associations, informal groups, and non-governmental organisations. It is campaigning for the implementation of a plan to bring to life the striking, but partly crumbling, Fábrica da Cerveja as a public facility with a cultural, technological, and scientific remit.
“Only some of these organisations have developed programmes at the Fábrica, and none has or has had its headquarters in the building, nor has any requested alternative accommodation from Faro Municipal Council,” the movement says.
“The only organisation headquartered at the Fábrica is the Associação Recreativa e Cultural de Músicos (ARCM), which has never been part of the Movement,” it adds.
“We were therefore dismayed to hear the Mayor [António Miguel Pina] speak of relocating ARCM to another part of the city as though this transfer constituted a solution for the Fábrica da Cerveja,” the statement says.
The movement points out that several projects for the building have been drawn up by public authorities over more than two decades. The most recent was unanimously approved by the council and provides for the rehabilitation of the site as a public facility with a cultural, technological and scientific remit.
In February 2022, as part of Faro’s bid to become European Capital of Culture 2027, Faro Municipal Council, then led by the allegedly shady Rogério Bacalhau, unveiled an ambitious project to transform the Fábrica da Cerveja into a centre for art and creativity.
The group says it has, from the outset, engaged with social partners and political parties represented in the Municipal Assembly, who “broadly agree with its premises”. It stresses that it has done so while maintaining its independence: “it does not seek to campaign against or oppose the Executive; rather, it demands that the expressed wishes of citizens, associations and civic groups regarding the future of the Fábrica be respected”.
The statement refers back to the Municipal Assembly meeting of 25 June 2026, when a CDU motion calling for the Fábrica da Cerveja to remain in public ownership was approved.
Although it welcomed the motion’s approval, the movement says it immediately highlighted its limitation: the motion “is declaratory and non-binding, can be ignored or reversed at any time, and is not a plan”.
The movement believes the municipal executive takes a different view of the urgency of work required on the building and of the activities that should remain there. It also points to what it describes as a contradiction between restrictions placed on the use of the property on alleged safety grounds and the holding of events organised or authorised by the council.
It therefore asks “how, if the council invokes the dangerous condition of the building to restrict its use, it could have continued, until today, to authorise its own events and those of third parties, including on the upper floors, precisely those most exposed to water ingress”, according to a report by the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority.
The Movimento Pela Fábrica group explains that, since making its concerns public, the municipal executive has demolished the Fábrica’s ground-floor courtyard terrace and buried the water supply point that supported the use of the outdoor space, “without posing a risk to users”.
According to the statement, the intervention was justified by preparations for the F Festival, which installed a stage there “with particularly high sound pressure levels”.
“The contradiction is obvious: how can a building whose use for other events is prevented on alleged safety grounds have hosted a programme on this scale?” the platform asks.
The movement says it has repeatedly sought clarification about plans for the Fábrica and for the “Cidade Velha” [Old Town]. It says the project that appears to emerge from the executive’s public statements, “because it has never been clearly presented”, “serves neither residents nor visitors, devaluing the Fábrica and the already scarce cultural spaces in the Old Town”.
From the Mayor’s comments about relocating activities currently based at the Fábrica, the movement concludes that “there is — or there is no intention to disclose — a clear plan for this area”.
“We are talking about a dynamic built up over decades, which brought the Old Town to life, promoted civic participation, artistic creation, science, technology and encounters between local and foreign audiences,” the statement says.
“Moving it to an area with little footfall, either from local residents or visitors, means removing from the heart of Faro the cultural, civic and community life that has been built there, impoverishing the city itself and the experience of those who visit it,” it argues.
“We therefore question whether this is the fulfilment of what the Mayor advocated during the election campaign, when he spoke of putting an end to the parties and ‘little parties’ in those spaces. And we question whether residents do not have the right to their Old Town as an everyday space for culture, participation and meeting.”
The statement goes on to contextualise this fiasco in what it sees as a trend “marked by a shortage of permanent residents, property speculation and the proliferation of alojamento local [holiday lets]”. The movement cites 33 tourist developments and 1,268 registered alojamento local properties in the municipality, and says the Algarve accounts for 49% of all alojamento local in Portugal.
“The transformation of the city into a space geared towards unproductive, short-term tourism is taking place at the expense of social cohesion, culture and community life,” the platform argues.
The movement fears that leaving the building unused could place it “at definitive risk” and pave the way for future forms of disposal or appropriation that it considers detrimental to the common heritage.
The platform points to “comparable and successful examples of the rehabilitation and repurposing of municipal industrial buildings and warehouses through robust cultural projects”, including gnration in Braga, the Hub Criativo do Beato in Lisbon, and the Real Fábrica de Artillería in Seville.
“Heritage is not something a city keeps empty. It is something it preserves, inhabits and keeps alive,” the statement reads.
“The Fábrica is not just a building: it is Faro’s cultural, civic and community life. Removing it from the heart of the city means removing life from the city itself, increasingly impoverished in terms of independent cultural and civic spaces,” it concludes.
Source: Barlavento
Photo credit: Maria José Cabral de Mendonça
