Portimão has announced it is finalising the architectural projects for the future “Núcleo Museológico Casa Manuel Teixeira Gomes”. The work procedures for the Museum are set to be launched later this year, with the intervention expected to begin in 2024 when Portimão will celebrate its first centenary as a city.
The projects, budgeted at €74,900 and awarded to a firm of architects, foresee the entrance to the future cultural centre to be made through an artery resulting from the connection between the Largo do Dique and the Rua Júdice Biker. This new road, opened to traffic on July 1, will be named Rua José Libânio Gomes, after Manuel Teixeira Gomes’ father.
One of the first elements decorating the access to the future museum centre is a set of six imperial palm trees that have already been placed. These have a double symbolic function in honouring Teixeira Gomes “since, on the one hand, these palm trees were, in the past, a symbol of a wealthy house, such as the residence of Manuel Teixeira Gomes, while, on the other hand, they represent Algeria, in North Africa, where the patron went into exile and died”, explains the Municipality.
Behind these tall palm trees, a mural with the image of Manuel Teixeira Gomes and other pictorial elements will be created, evoking the life and work of the distinguished literary man, businessman and diplomat, born in Portimão in 1860.
Two years ago, for around €300,000, the Municipality of Portimão acquired a set of vacant buildings in the Rua Júdice Biker and the Largo do Dique, thus doubling the current area of the Casa Manuel Teixeira Gomes.
Once open, the Museum will exhibit part of the distinguished Portimão writer and President of the Republic’s private collection. It will also be used to hold conferences, concerts and other sessions to publicise the life and work of the statesman “responsible for elevating Vila Nova de Portimão to the category of city, through a decree-law published in the Government Gazette of December 11, 1924”, concludes the Municipality.
