LISBON — This year’s legislative elections in Portugal were marked by the strong presence of an issue that had appeared timidly in the previous campaign: housing.
So much so that in his victory speech, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, president of the Democratic Alliance (AD), said “it is possible to have more supply in the housing market — on both the public and private sides”. This is even though the party’s electoral program is silent on public supply.
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In Lisbon — where the housing shortage, and how to solve a crisis that has mobilized the entire population are being debated, with researchers advocating an increase in the public and intermediate housing stock — many ideas are emerging.
The AD, in fact, proposes an “almost automatic” mobilization of vacant or underused public buildings and land. But José Miguel Silva, a researcher at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Architecture, has another idea: to breathe new life into Lisbon’s empty convents by turning them into affordable housing.
And that’s exactly what he’s proposing through the “reHabit:ConventLx” project.
Inhabited convents in Lisbon
This is not a new idea. At the beginning of the 20th century, at a time when houses were scarce in Lisbon, convents and palaces were occupied by people who didn’t have a home.
Some of these convents have retained their housing function until now, as the newspaper Público recalled in a recent article: the Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth in Lisbon (Convento das Bernardas) and the Convent of Our Lady of Quietness (Convento das Flamengas) are examples of convents that have been transformed into affordable housing. In addition to these, the Convent of Santos-o-Novo, with an ongoing project, is now inhabited by the elderly and students, and the Convent of Our Lady of Porciúncula (Barbadinhos) has been transformed into collective housing.
Cities have been used and reused over time. We live in a recycled city.
Meanwhile, the Seminary of St. Patrick (Convento dos Irlandeses) and the Convent of St. John the Evangelist in Xabregas (Convento do Beato António) have been transformed into luxury housing. And there are still five more convents informally inhabited around the city.
José Miguel Silva’s research, as part of the “reHabit: ConventLx” project, shows that there are still 16 abandoned convents in Lisbon. Would it be possible to turn them into affordable housing at a time when rents are rising?
“Cities have been used and reused over time. We live in a recycled city. Everyone thinks that recycling is trendy, but it’s not. It’s something ancient, so don’t be dazzled, just live with it,” says the researcher.
Changing throughout the ages
Silva compares convents to “palimpsests” — a term that refers to the manuscripts that the copyist monks erased in the Middle Ages so that they could be written on again. If there are convents that have been adapted for housing, many others have been transformed into hotels, hubs, museums, and so on.
“The text is always changing. The question is: how can we add new words? The important thing in heritage is not the stone, but the meaning of the building.”
There are already many of these “palimpsests”, as the “Open Convents” initiative shows, with buildings that were once convents.
“What do the Parliament building, the National Museum of Ancient Art, the Lisbon Catholic curia and the Armazéns do Chiado shopping center have in common? They were all once convents or monasteries.”
The evolution of the convents over time shows this. For example, the Convento de São Domingos, in Largo de São Domingos, in the 13th century “was much larger at the time, and was surrounded by farms, there was nothing built around it.”
When people look at these convents, they think they are historic, but in fact they have been transformed throughout the years.
Convents were built outside the city walls, a feature that makes them more desirable, and the researcher explains why: “Convents were important in the construction of the city. Whenever the city grew, a new convent was built as a central point.”
A turning point in the history of convents was when the Liberal movement abolished the religious orders in Portugal in 1834. In the work “The convents of Lisbon. Uma abordagem criptopórtica”, it is written that there were 88 convents in the city at the time: “This immense heritage, relatively well preserved until the first half of the 19th century, then went through a long period of disintegration.”
Many attribute the destruction of the convents to the 1755 earthquake, but researchers argue that the extinction of the religious orders had far more damaging effects, given the deactivation of these spaces.
Silva adds: “When people look at these convents, they think they are historic, but in fact they have been transformed throughout the years.”
Convents as housing solutions
The convents that are now used for housing have undergone various alterations over the years. For instance, the Convento das Bernardas was built in Madragoa to house nuns of St. Bernard in 1653, was seriously destroyed during the 1755 earthquake and later rebuilt by Italian architect Giacomo Azzolini.
Then, with the extinction of the religious orders, it was bought and turned into a school, a movie theater, a grocery store and a warehouse. In 1928, there were already people living there in terrible conditions, a situation that lasted for decades.
In a 1994 article in the newspaper Público, these conditions were exposed: “The convent retains the characteristics of a workers’ village, to which must be added a clear lack of habitability and an advanced state of degradation of the building.”
Meanwhile, in 1998, Lisbon City Council took possession of this convent, and a new project for the building was completed in 2001.
The convent is now used for social housing, with subsidized rental values established in the new supported rental regime for housing. In other words, the rent is calculated according to the household’s income.
The Convento das Flamengas, in Alcântara, was built between 1582 and 1586 for the arrival of nuns from Germany and Holland who were fleeing Protestant persecution. The 1755 earthquake barely damaged the building and, more than a century later, the Secretary of State for Public Works declared it state property. Even in the 19th century, the convent housed women from the families of officers who had died while serving in the colonies.
In the 20th century, it was partly ceded to the parish of São Pedro de Alcântara for a school and a residence. Today, it’s used for social housing.
Finally, the Santos-o-Novo Convent, near Santa Apolónia, was built in 1609 to provide a new space for the Order of Sant’iago de Espada. The convent was completed in 1685. However, soon after, the earthquake caused a lot of damage and left it uninhabitable.
After the third floor collapsed, reconstruction work was necessary. But the monastery suffered even more damage when a fire broke out 20 years later, destroying the dormitories, chapel and sacristy. The monastery ceased existing at the end of the 19th century.
In the 20th century, it became a retirement home for widows and unmarried daughters of army officers and civil servants. It now operates as an assisted living facility for the elderly and students, the latter managed by the University Institute of Lisbon (Iscte).
What will become of convents?
Nowadays, convents are particularly attractive.
“Everyone wants the convents,” says Silva. “There have already been ideas for empty convents, to turn them into hotels or houses.” For the researcher, at this critical time, the future of these buildings should be affordable housing.
“With the growing shortage of affordable housing and the emerging need to apply sustainability and resource management measures, the repurposing of our built heritage is a viable solution,” writes Silva in his research.
Presently, there are plans to turn some convents into housing, and one of them is in the Santos-o-Novo Convent, where an architectural project envisages a student residence in partnership with Iscte with 118 beds, as well as a senior residence, also with 118 beds.
The investment is expected to be around 8 million euros, four million of which will be financed by the EU-sponsored post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The Lisbon City Council confirmed to Mensagem that there are three requests for licenses or urban planning procedures to convert convents into housing: at Casa Rilhafoles (the Miguel Bombarda Hospital, which used to be a convent), which belongs to the state, at the Santo António da Convalescença Convent, which is privately owned, and at the Santo Elói Convent, which is also privately owned.
Their timelessness makes them attractive for reuse.
Meanwhile, the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (Direção Geral do Património Cultural) told the newspaper Público that the Conventinho da Estrela is also part of a controlled-cost housing program, which is the result of an initiative by the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation.
The popularity of convents is not surprising, says Silva. Their timelessness makes them attractive for reuse. And this transformation is “a never-ending process”.
It’s true that convents will be reused, but the question is what will be decided in the near future, what Lisbon’s “palimpsest” will look like in the future, and whether these buildings can be part of the solution for a city where, like a century ago, there is a shortage of houses.
