“Commissioned by Rita Palla Aragão, this exhibition brings an in-depth look at the most important photography book of the 20th century in Portugal. The work, by the duo of architects Victor Palla (1922-2006) and Costa Martins (1922-1996), was published in 1959 and resulted from a three-year work in which both walked the streets of Lisbon, portraying it and to its inhabitants, thus revealing a hidden city, simultaneously sad and joyful.
Of the six thousand photographs taken, the authors chose about two hundred to integrate the book, to which they added a long and singular index (which explains much of the creative process) and a series of poems that convert the work into a true graphic poem.
A book of worship about Lisbon, it was considered fundamental to dedicate an exhibition to the city that inspired it and to which the authors dedicated this work, which they described in the presentation:
(…) the portrait of human Lisbon and live through its inhabitants – day and night, in its neighborhoods, in the Baixa, in the Tagus – revelation now joyful or sad but always tender and felt, of the life of a city . Perhaps this is why it would be more appropriate to call it a “graphic poem” – even because the arrangement of the images and the composition of the book itself have, in their graffiti, the flow, the alternation of rhythms, the resonances of a poetic work.” In Lisbon Museum website
In the framework of the exhibition Lisboa, Cidade Triste e Alegre: Arquitectura de um Livro [Lisbon, Sad and Joyful City: Architecture of a Book] (12-16 September, Lisbon Museum – Pimenta Palace, Portugal), centered on the book with the same name, published in 1959 by the architects Victor Palla (1922-2006) and Costa Martins (1922-1996), the 7 volume collection will be launched at Museu de Lisboa (Lisbon Museum) at 5.30pm, on 5th July 2018. The Chair of Docomomo International, Prof. Ana Tostões, will attend the launch aswell as Vanda Gorjão and António Pedro Ferreira.
The exhibition will be open from 12st April to 16th September 2018 at Lisbon Museum – Pimenta Palace, Lisbon, Portugal.
About the book: website
