Palácio da Bolsa Audio Guide

Palácio da Bolsa: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Palácio da Bolsa

   Welcome to the Palácio da Bolsa, the Stock Exchange Palace, in the historic centre of Porto. You are on Rua de Ferreira Borges, at the edge of the Infante Dom Henrique square, in a part of the city that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Right beside the palace stands the Church of Saint Francis, and that neighbour is the key to the whole story. The palace was built by the city's Commercial Association, the Associação Comercial do Porto. It is a neoclassical building, and it was never a royal residence. Porto never had a royal palace. What the city has instead is the most monumental palace its merchants could afford to build. It has been a National Monument since 1982, and the Commercial Association still has its headquarters here. Over the next few minutes we will look at how a fire, a closed trading hall and a determined merchant class produced this building. Then we will step into its famous rooms, and finally into the turbulent years when the palace changed hands.

2. 02

   From Convent Ruins to Merchant Palace

   Every great building has a beginning, and this one begins with a disaster. On the night of the twenty-fourth of July, 1832, during the siege of Porto in the Liberal Wars, a huge fire swept through the Convent of Saint Francis. The convent had been founded in the thirteenth century. The fire destroyed its cloisters, but the church survived, and that is the church you see standing next to the palace today. The ruins were later donated by Queen Maria the Second. The city's merchants built their new home on that ground, a place for the trading floor of the exchange and for a court of first instance. They had an urgent reason. The previous stock exchange building had closed, and Porto's traders were left discussing their business in the open air. The Commercial Association laid the first stone on the sixth of October, 1842, under the presidency of José Henriques Soares, the Baron of Ancede. Some modern accounts read the building as a symbol of the Porto merchant class asserting itself over the clergy, since a palace of commerce now stood where a convent once had.

3. 03

   An Architect and a Neopalladian Idea

   The architect chosen for the project was Joaquim da Costa Lima Júnior, from Porto. He submitted the plans, the budget and the details of the project, and he led the work from 1840 until 1860. His design is neoclassical, with Palladian influence, and it follows a fashion that had already shaped Porto since the late eighteenth century. You can see that lineage in other buildings around the city. One is the Hospital of Saint Anthony, by the English architect John Carr. Another is the English Factory, by John Whitehead. A third group is the projects of the Portuguese architect Carlos Amarante. Costa Lima took that elegant, orderly language and gave it to the city's merchants. The clear sense of order outside is easy to notice from the square. It was meant to say that the people inside were serious and cosmopolitan. The idea was to link the merchant class with culture and knowledge, not only to follow a fashion.

4. 04

   Rooms of Splendor: Nations and Alhambra Dreams

   The outside is restrained, but the interior is a different story. The main structure was mostly finished by 1850, but the decoration of the interiors took far longer. That work picked up from the 1860s and was only completed in 1910, with many different artists taking part. It is also linked to the construction of the old Crystal Palace in Porto, which was happening at the same time. Two rooms are famous. One is the Pátio das Nações, the Courtyard of the Nations. The other is the Salão Árabe, the Arab Room, inspired by the Alhambra palace in Granada. It is decorated in the exotic Moorish Revival style that was fashionable in the nineteenth century, and it is used as a reception hall for personalities and heads of state visiting Porto. The result is a very eclectic taste, typical of the turn of the twentieth century. It is also why the Commercial Association is still called the drawing room of the city, the place where Porto receives its guests.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   The palace's story did not end with the last decorations. When the Republic was proclaimed on the fifth of October, 1910, the building was inventoried and vacated, and public ownership was recorded on the eleventh of February, 1911. One of the portraits of a monarch inside, the one of Dom Carlos the First, was vandalized with two pistol shots. The Commercial Association regained possession in 1918, during the rule of Sidónio Pais. Unlike many buildings of its era, it never fell into decline. Today it is still the home of the Commercial Association, and it hosts cultural, social and political events for the city. Before you go, take a slow look at the palace beside the Church of Saint Francis. Notice how the two buildings sit side by side, one that survived the fire and one that grew from its ruins. Then look around the neighbouring streets, where several other historic monuments are just a short walk away.