Technology and Culture

Maria Paula Diogo

Portuguese museums that date from the turn of the twentieth century differ greatly from those developed in the 1980s and 1990s. For some fifty years prior to the Carnation Revolution of 1974–76, Portugal was ruled by a dictatorship little interested in the preservation of the country’s scientific, technical, and industrial heritage. With two exceptions—the Natural History Museum and its Botanical Garden (a typical museum of the science of the Enlightenment) and the Water Museum (a rare example of a private company museum)—Portugal’s older institutions focus on general history. Since 1976, however, Portuguese museology has emphasized collaboration among historians, researchers, and entrepreneurs. The museums now focused on the collection and preservation of scientific and technical instruments, machines, archives (including drawings and photographs), natural materials, and industrial sites are contributing to a growing public awareness of the importance of this heritage. Funding challenges are substantial, however, and research—central to the museum mission—is frequently postponed as institutions struggle to maintain their collections and industrial archaeological sites. Portuguese museums therefore can be—and often are—severely hampered in their efforts to put the full story of the nation’s scientific, technical, and industrial heritage before the public.

On the occasion of the Society for the History of Technology’s 2008 meeting in Lisbon, what follows is an abbreviated tour of the major scientific and technological museums of the area and a brief glimpse at their rich and varied collections. This review proceeds thematically, beginning with the more broadly chartered institutions of the region and continuing with the more specialized museums that focus on particular industries or particular sectors: transportation, communications, natural resources, and energy. Our hope is that this brief review will serve as a useful guide for those who choose to venture forth from the annual meeting itself and experience Lisbon’s vibrant museum scene.

Museu da ciência (Science Museum) and Museu de história natural (Natural History Museum)

The Museums of Science and Natural History are located in the former Lisbon Polytechnic School. The Science Museum was created in 1985 and is largely devoted to the public understanding of science.1 Many of its long- and short-term exhibitions and workshops are aimed at a younger audience. At the core of the permanent collection are more than 10,000 scientific apparatuses, most dating from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The permanent display presents both a historical approach (instruments used in the past) and an interactive experience that allows visitors to be part of the various experiments. The highlight of the Science Museum is the nineteenth-century Laboratorio Chimico (Chemistry Laboratory), which was considered one of the best laboratories of its time.2 Recently restored to its original plan and with its old instruments and apparatuses in place, the unique setting of the Chemistry Laboratory now offers visitors a glimpse of how chemistry was studied and taught in the nineteenth century (fig. 1).

The museum also has a planetarium, used mainly for pedagogical purposes. Its small astronomical observatory on the terrace, which dates to 1898, is used for public courses in astronomy. It has not yet been restored.

The Natural History Museum has three primary collections: botany, zoology, and mineralogy and geology.3 The museum was part of the pedagogical strategy of the Lisbon Polytechnic School, which promoted an experiment-driven approach to science. In this context, the school created both the mineralogical and geological collections (1840) and the Botanical Garden (1873) that is the highlight of the museum. The Botanical Garden was considered crucial to the training of students enrolled at the Polytechnic. The first plants and trees were brought from the botanical garden at Ajuda in 1873. Later plantings were purchased from European botanical gardens and supplemented with specimens from the Portuguese colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia.

Fig. 1 The Laboratorio Chimico (Chemistry Laboratory) at the Museum of Science, University of Lisbon. (Photo by P. Cintra, reproduced courtesy of the Museum of Science.)

Museu da farmácia (Pharmacy Museum)

Founded in 1996 and located in a former palace, the Pharmacy Museum covers more than 5,000 years of pharmaceutical history, from prehistoric medicines to medieval potions, and artifacts from 3600 BCE to pharmaceutical techniques developed for voyages to outer space.4 Objects related to the pharmaceutical art and science of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Japan, Africa, Europe, and South America are on display. The highlight of the museum lies in the four pharmacies brought intact from other parts of Portugal and the Portuguese empire; these include a nineteenth-century Chinese drugstore from Portugal’s former territory of Macao.

Museu do azulejo (Tile Museum)

The Tile Museum is located in the sixteenth-century Madre de Deus convent and cloister.5 Created in 1980, the museum features the tile exhibition that opened at the King João III cloister in 1971 as part of the National Museum of Ancient Art. Portuguese tiles from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century are on permanent display, organized chronologically in fifteen rooms. These exhibitions range from early manufacturing techniques (Room 1) to designs by contemporary artists (Room 15). Rooms A to H, original to the convent, are richly decorated with paintings, tile panels, and gilded wood in the mannerist and baroque styles (fig. 2). Room H features the Panorama of Lisbon, a tilework showing Lisbon as it appeared prior to the earthquake of 1755. In addition to the permanent collection, the museum organizes temporary exhibitions on the history of tiles and ceramics.

A fine example in situ of Portuguese tilework is found in the Marquis of Fronteira Palace, where eighteenth-century tiles cover every surface, their scale varying from tiny panels to entire walls, their color from polychrome to blue and white, their nationality from Portuguese to Spanish and Dutch, and their themes from the erudite to the satirical.6

Fig. 2 Altar tiles, Lisbon, about 1650, on display at the Museu do Azulejo (Tile Museum). (Photo courtesy of the Tile Museum.)

Museu da marinha (Maritime Museum)

The Maritime Museum is located in the northern and western wings of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, the well-known monastery conceived and commissioned by Manuel I as a symbol of the Portuguese royal dynasty and a tribute to the Portuguese oceanic explorations to Africa, South America, India, China, and Japan.7 The monks of the religious order of Saint Jerome were charged with praying for the king’s soul and providing spiritual comfort to those leaving for unknown and distant lands. The monastery is considered the masterpiece of Manuelino, the Portuguese architectural style that combines elements of the late Gothic and Renaissance periods with an iconography related to the king, Christianity, and the natural world.

The Maritime Museum collection was planned in 1863 by King Luís, himself commander of a ship of the royal fleet. The museum illustrates the importance of the Portuguese seafaring tradition with maps, maritime codes, navigational equipment, full-size and model ships, uniforms, and weapons. Galeotas (the richly decorated rowboats used by the royal family in their promenades along the banks of the Tagus River) are displayed in the adjacent freestanding gallery. The particularly interesting Room 5 is dedicated to the eighteenth-century shipbuilding industry of the Lisbon Arsenal.

Museu militar (Military Museum)

This museum is located in a neighborhood long related to the Lisbon Arsenal.8 Beginning in the fifteenth century, weapons, explosives, and gunpowder were made and stored in the tercenas, along the bank of the Tagus. The museum building dates to the eighteenth century, when the Marquis of Pombal rebuilt the former headquarters of the Tenência (the government office in charge of making and storing weapons and other war matériel), which was damaged in the 1755 earthquake. The eastern courtyard (Pátio dos Canhões) was part of this building. In 1842, the chief inspector of the Arsenal was attracted by the “old and bizarre machines” and other apparatuses forgotten in the cellars of several of the Arsenal buildings. The Artillery Museum was founded nine years later (1851), but it did not open to the public until 1877.

The building was remodeled and enlarged at the end of the nineteenth century. Some of the principal artists of the time were invited to contribute works of art. The Corinthian-style portal authored by a renowned Portuguese sculptor dates from this period.

The Military Museum displays weapons, uniforms, and armor, as well as war-themed paintings, sculpture, and tiles. Three of its five rooms contain war artifacts from the fifteenth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and twentieth centuries. The Camões room is devoted to paintings that show the primary episodes from the Portuguese epic, Os Lus’adas. The basement level is devoted to the Mouzinho de Albuquerque, an influential military leader in the Portuguese African empire.

Museu dos coches (Coach Museum)

The National Coach Museum is located on the premises of the old Royal Riding Arena of Belém Palace,9 designed by Italian architect Giacomo Azzolini for King João VI. The upper part of the main hall (50 m by 17 m) contains platforms used by the royal family and members of the court to watch equestrian games. The arena became a museum in 1904; the exhibition area was enlarged in 1940.

The collection features ceremonial vehicles from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, most of which belonged to the crown or were the private property of the Portuguese royal house. It includes coaches, Berlins, carriages, chaises, cabriolets, litters, sedan chairs, and children’s buggies. The excellent collection enables visitors to understand the technical and artistic evolution of the animal-drawn carriages used by European courts before the advent of the motorcar.

Particularly impressive are three Triumphal Vehicles that King João V sent to the Pope in 1716 to demonstrate his wealth; the richly gilded Lisbon Coronation Coach in the baroque style that symbolizes Lisbon as capital of the Portuguese empire and victorious in the defense of the Christian faith; the Ambassador Coach, which features stone and wood sculpture carved with the symbols of navigation and glorifies the Portuguese king (depicted as the Lord of Navigation); and, finally, the Oceans Coach, a tribute to the Portuguese empire that extended from Brazil to India.

Museu da carris (Museum Of Public Transportation)

The Carris Museum, created in 1999, is dedicated to the Lisbon transport system.10 The collection is housed in two locations, linked by a short ride in a 1901 tram. Most of Area 1 displays documents, pictures, and small-scale artifacts related to the history of the transport company; Area 2 exhibits Lisbon trams and buses, both horse-drawn and modern. The museum features the typical yellow trolleys of Lisbon and the green double-decker buses that first operated during the Mundo Português (the Portuguese World Exhibition) that took place under the dictatorship.

Museu das comunicações (Communications Museum)

The Communications Museum, created in 1999, is located in Alcântara, an industrial area in nineteenth-century Lisbon.11 It is dedicated to several forms of communication: stagecoach mail services, postal services, stamps, television, radio, telecommunications, and air navigation. It also includes the House of the Future where contemporary technologies are presented in a domestic environment to show how they can enhance daily life. The museum is strongly committed to an educational program for children.

In addition to multiple temporary exhibitions, the museum features Shortening Distances, a permanent display of the history of Portuguese postal and telecommunication systems. The permanent exhibition is organized around four main themes: the telephone network, which presents old telephones and automatic exchange stations; a typical nineteenth-century postal station, which contains commonly used artifacts and furnishings; stagecoach mail services, which revisits early Portuguese postal services; and the House of the Future, where the latest developments in home automation (domotics) are presented and experienced.

Museu da água (Water Museum)

This museum dates from 1919, when the water company decided to show the public some of the artifacts used in the Lisbon water supply network. The museum was remodeled in 1987, and in 1990 it earned the Council of Europe Museum Prize.

The Water Museum consists of four different sites that formed the core of the Lisbon water supply network, itself some 60 km long (the distance between Lisbon and the water source on its outskirts is approximately 18 km). The sites are: the Barbadinhos Steam Pump Station (1880–1928); two storage reservoirs (Mãe d’Água, 1746, and Patriarcal, 1856–1940s); and the Águas Livres Aqueduct (1732, 1834–1960s).12 The well-preserved Barbadinhos Steam Pump Station is particularly interesting from a technological point of view; built in 1880, it used four steam machines and five boilers to increase the volume of water distributed. The two reservoirs were constructed to receive and distribute water collected by the aqueduct. Today they are used for art exhibits and other cultural displays, but it is still possible to view the vast holding tanks, the internal waterfall at Mãe d’Água, and the related equipment (fig. 3).

The aqueduct itself was planned by Manuel da Maia under King João V and took one hundred years to complete. It is a remarkable example of architectural engineering, not only for its length (it extends 941 m across the Alcantâra Valley) but also for the heights of its thirty-five arches, among which is a pointed arch 65.29 m high by 28.86 m wide, the world’s largest pointed arch built of stone.

Museu da electricidade (Electricity Museum)

The Electricity Museum is located in the Tagus Power Station (Central Tejo), a Lisbon architectural landmark with a facade of red brick, iron, and glass.13 The plant dates to 1908, when a small power station was built to supply Lisbon with electricity and to power gaslights. The plant was enlarged in 1919 when two generators and six low-pressure boilers were installed.

Fig. 3 The Machinery Room at the Barbadinhos Steam Pump Station, at the Museu da Água (Water Museum). (Photo courtesy of the Water Museum.)

The Central Tejo was fully operational until 1954, when both its space and technological equipment were altered to accommodate new technical demands and productivity growth. The plant closed in 1975 and reopened in 1991 as the Electricity Museum. In 2006, the permanent exhibition was enriched with rooms devoted to the history of energy; they highlight the role of future renewable energy sources and allow youngsters to experience electrical phenomena.

The main part of the permanent exhibition is the old power station, which still contains all its generating equipment (a high-pressure boiler made by the Babcock & Wilcox Company of Britain) and groups of turbo-alternators.

It is worth remarking that the primary fuel used to run the plant was the coal unloaded and carried in baskets to the power station by workers from Alcochete, a small village on the opposite bank of the river.14

The Science Museum’s Laboratorio Chimico is unique and highly regarded within the European museum community, and the Water Museum has received several European prizes. On balance, however, Portuguese museums are typically less well-known and recognized than their counterparts elsewhere. Nevertheless, they do offer stimulating perspectives on the scientific, technological, and industrial history of Portugal, and they are more than worth a visit.15

1. <http://www.mc.ul.pt> (accessed 25 March 2008), partially available in English. All museums discussed here are easily reached by public transportation. Local organizers are available to help SHOT conferees arrange visits.

2. Visits can be arranged online at <http://www.mc.ul.pt/lab/> (accessed 25 March 2008). During the SHOT 2008 meeting, Tour E will visit the Chemistry Laboratory and Botanical Garden as part of the Lisbon technological walking tour.

3. <http://www.jb.ul.pt/> (accessed 25 March 2008; no English version available).

4. <http://www.anf.pt/site/index.php?page=data/anf/museu_farmacia.php> (accessed 25 March 2008; no English version available).

5. <http://www.mnazulejo-ipmuseus.pt> (accessed 25 March 2008).

6. During the SHOT 2008 meeting, Tour D will visit the Marquis of Fronteira Palace.

7. <http://museu.marinha.pt> (accessed 25 March 2008; no English version available).

8. <http://www.geira.pt/mmilitar/> (accessed 15 April 2008).

9. <http://www.museudoscoches-ipmuseus.pt/> (accessed 25 March 2008).

10. <http://www.carris.pt/en/index.php?area=empresa_historia> (accessed 25 March 2008).

11. <http://www.fpc.pt/> (accessed 25 March 2008; an English version of this page is currently under construction). During SHOT 2008, Tour E will visit the surroundings of the museum.

12. <http://museudaagua.epal.pt/museudaagua/> (accessed 25 March 2008). During SHOT 2008, Tour B will visit part of the aqueduct and the Mãe d’Água reservoir.

13. <http://www.edp.pt/EDPI/Internet/EN/Group/AboutEDP/EDPFoundation/EDP ElectricityMuseum/default.htm> (accessed 25 March 2008).

14. The SHOT 2008 banquet will be located in Alcochete; Central Tejo is visible from the restaurant.

15. Admission to most of the museums covered in this essay will be free to SHOT members during the Lisbon meeting; simply show your conference badge at the door.

Maria Paula Diogo is assistant professor of history of technology in the Faculty of Science and Technology at New University of Lisbon, Portugal, and coordinates a project on technology and the Portuguese empire. Her current research focuses on Portuguese engineering. She publishes on a regular basis both nationally and internationally and is a member of several international research networks and groups. She chairs the SHOT 2008 local arrangements committee.

©2008 by the Society for the History of Technology.