Part of the Sines industrial project, devised by Marcelo Caetano’s government in the years leading up to the April 25th, 1974, Vila Nova de Santo André was largely built after the revolution, with construction suffering from constant setbacks and hesitations in terms of economic and political guidelines. A unique case in Portugal of an urban project for a new city, fifty years after the beginning of Santo André’s construction we are faced with the absence of any academic research able to promote a critical view and discussion of this work.

This is what the team of IN2PAST’s exploratory project ‘Filling a Double Void: A Critical and Mnemonic Review of Vila Nova de Santo André, 1971-2021’ intends to contribute to, by stimulating a critical and mnemonic review of the city of Vila Nova de Santo André through a set of multidisciplinary initiatives, crossing the history of the ideological matrix of architecture and urbanism with oral history, photography and anthropology.

Project principal investigator (PI), IHC / IN2PAST researcher Paulo Catrica, was in Funchal, Madeira, in early December, for a presentation of this project entitled ‘A Double Void: A Critical and Mnemonic Reading of the New Town of Santo André, 1971-2021’, at the International Conference of Photography Studies. Themed ‘Photography and Site – Routes, Cartographies and Drifts’, the conference was held at Colégio dos Jesuítas, University of Madeira, from December 4^th to the 6^th, 2023.

Learn more about this exploratory project.