PORTUGUESE INFLUENCE ON THE SECULAR AND
RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE OF GOA
ABSTRACT
In India there are some important nuclea where a preicous
Heritage remains, born from the fortunate meeting of both the
Indian and the Portuguese cultures during nearly five centuries.
discloses its own wa)
This culture which vehiculates a life style of its own,
discloses its own way of inhabiting cities and houses, of using
its furniture, instruments and works of art.
URBAN DESIGN
The Portugues have developed two completely different
ways of organizmg urban settlements in India:
the Medieval-organic city or village
the Renaissance-genometric city
In the first case the spacial organization is an efflux of
a difuse popular urban culture.Hilly localizations were usually
chosen and the aglomerates grew up in an organic way
In the second type of settlement the "Ideal City of the
Renaissance" was used as model when a city was built inside
a fortress and from its very beginning.
RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE
Churches and Covents
It is in the "Old Conquests" (Velhas' Conquistas) that the
oldest and mostimportant Churches and Covents of Goa are
located.
A description is made identifying the characteristics of
the different periods of their construction in connection with
other important roligious buildings in places like Bassaim, Damao
Diu,Chaul,etc.
The mixture of the European grammars with the local
decorative features, is a new rich and exuberant product, full
of originality that brilliantly documents the encounter of two
civilizations.
The Hindu Temples
In Goa, when the new Temlles were built, the decorative
themes of the Renaissance, Manerism and Baroque are used toge-
ther with tipically occidental way of organising the volumes.
There is a conciliatory agreement of style between the
Hindu tempjes and the Christian Churches without similar any-
where else. '
CIVIL ACRCHITECTURE
There are very few remaining civil buildings of Portuguese
influence from the XVI and XVII century in india.Old Goa
was abandoned in the end of the XVII century and the remains
of the magnificent buildings tha made the town so famous are very
acarce.
In Bassaim the facades of the House of the Camara and
the Senate which are still standing, are the best examples
of civil architecture of classical style in the Indian space.
Residential Architecture
The peculiar Goan social organjzation, based on special
privileges granted to the converts to Christianism, reinforced
the stabilization of the rural society around the owners of large
properties that had their refined mansions build to fit luxurious
standards in the villages where they lived. Although a few man-
sions in Goa date back to the XVI century, most of them were
built in the late XVII and early XVIII centuries.
The spacial organization of the Goan House is usually made
around a central court;here,the Hindu and the Mediterranean
traditions coincide.
A high plinth raises the house from the ground giving it
an imposing look.
The high-pitchcd roof of the Goan houses rests on a cornice
formed by two to four rows of round traditional tiles together
with the decorative rnouldings which surround doors and windows
give these houses a great ressemblance with those of southern
Portugal.
Another typical characteristics is the way the masonry
details are overscaled, identifying a clear manerist approach
The "East Indians" were~ primitive nominal christians that
were converted to catholicism by the Portuguese. They lived
in Bassaim, Chaul, Salcete and other places' that nowadays belong
to the Bombay area.
The districts where they live have, even today, a distinct
character with the ambience of the traditional quarters of Goa.
THE SURVEY IN COURSE
The research on the "Indo-Portuguese Buildings and Urban
Spaces" that we are conducting in Goa, Damao and Diu, sponsored
by the Instituto Cultural de Macau, is the object of our present
work.
Many grand ancestral houses are requiring urgent attention.
Some have been demolished and many invaluable buildings in
towns and countryside alike are menaced by the construction
boom that started some years ago.
The attraction of Goa's mediterranean urbanscape and
of its charming houses is menaced by the destruction of the
human scale of urban spaces and the demolishion of the fine
old houses.
The management of environmental changes must support
the cultural continuity which generated the unique character
of Goan culture in order to keep that culture alive.
Faro. October, 1990.
