Matosinhos: the same places 26 years later

Photographic front to front based on images captured by Gabriele Basilico in 1996 shows how Matosinhos has changed. Exhibition is on show at the Museum of Memory

The idea is to show how Matosinhos was in 1996 and how Matosinhos is nowadays. In a photographic front, Museu da Memória displays until the beginning of next year an exhibition that invites the visitor to remember emblematic places of the city - and also of Leça da Palmeira - where the landscape has changed radically. The starting point of this exhibition is a series of images captured by Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico.

At the time, there was no cruise ship terminal. The Gist-Brocades yeast factory was still standing and, not far from there, the ruins of other industrial units which marked the lives of many people in what became one of the city's noble areas remained silent. Many of those who frequent the great sandy beach of Matosinhos today will have no idea of what the seafront used to be like before the construction of the Palácio da Enseada building or the layout of Avenida General Norton de Matos.

The exhibition "Matosinhos, place and memory" joins originals by Gabriele Basilico (1944-2013) with images of the same places, taken in 2022. The Milan architect, who gained notoriety as a photographer, particularly for works focused on urban landscape, participated in 1996 in a collective project to collect different perspectives of Matosinhos (along with Larry Fink, Bruno Sequeira and Augusto Alves da Silva), which resulted in an exhibition and the publication of a book.

Fernando Rocha, Councillor for Culture, recalls that, at the time, Basilico's work caused "a great stir", because people were very used to "picture postcards" and the photographs of the Milanese architect show "ugly things" and in ruins. The author, he adds, was very concerned with "urban voids, urban scars".

"It is a small but very significant exhibition, because it proves how the city has changed", says the responsible, underlining that these images are "fundamental for the memory of Matosinhos". Among the most significant examples are the large block of flats on the marginal avenue, the Palácio da Enseada (where Gist-Brocades used to be), and the building that dominates the block formed by Avenida Menéres and the streets Roberto Ivens, Sousa Aroso and Brito Capelo. On the Leça side, the differences are clearly visible in the area near the lighthouse, where the Paço da Boa Nova was built.

Organised to mark the first anniversary of the Museu da Memória (which opened at the end of August 2021), the exhibition also includes a series of videos that give a 360-degree perspective of the places in question. It is on show until February/March.