Through the ruins of Portugal..

“What I have tried to do with this project is make people in this country wake up and see what has happened over the last 250 years. The truth is, in terms of cultural heritage, we really haven’t risen from the ashes of the terrible earthquake of 1775 – while the rest of Europe has recovered from two world wars! The reality is that it’s not just politicians that are corrupt – it’s the entire nation that simply wants to get rich quick, at no matter what cost”, he explained to us over the telephone – his voice heavy with disillusion.

He’s already taken photographs of more than 700 ruins throughout the country, and he says he’s read somewhere that there are about a million scattered across Portugal.

According to the way he describes the project, his photographs show “neglected architecture, poorly-prized culture, misread heritage and landscapes without sense”

http://ruinarte.blogspot.com/

His lens has captured redundant, boarded-up factories, abandoned ancient “palacettes” and summer residences and decaying rural buildings. Gastão Silva says he has a particular fondness for “art nouveau” and for the “incredible number of monasteries” that pepper the country – like the one in Monchique that he visited recently.

He’s also featured more modest buildings, like shepherds’ dwellings, windmills, military constructions and other “testaments to our history” – similarly abandoned to sad decay.

“I have no doubt that if all these old buildings had been valued and restored, we would be a much richer country,” he says. “How is it possible, for instance, that with our coastline, all the factories associated with the sea have been closed? How is it possible that there are hundreds of rural farms that don’t produce anything?”

Feeling the loss of so much national heritage to be irreversible, Gastão Silva wrote an open letter to various ministers of the former Sócrates government, as well as to the President of the Republic Cavaco Silva and numerous mayors. His missive suggested various solutions, “similar to those adopted in other countries”. But he only received one reply – from the deputy mayor of Lisbon borough council, who “thanked me for my original ideas”.

Despite being currently “confined to my own postal address” – for professional and financial reasons, Silva wants to continue taking photographs of the buildings that remain. During our conversation, he mentioned another example in the Algarve: Vivenda Vitória, a magnificent house that’s slowly falling to bits on the outskirts of Olhão.

Technology makes his job a little easier. When he goes to a certain area, he uses Google Earth “to look for houses without a roof”. Perhaps we should follow his example, before the ruins all crumble into oblivion…