4.2.4 Padrão dos Descobrimentos

Avenida da Brasília, Belém

Location HERE.

Open Every Day.

Potted history to correct the myriad of misleading information out there: the monument was first built in 1940 as part of the Exhibition of the Portuguese (-Speaking) World. It was designed by José Ângelo Cottinelli Telmo (yes, the one who designed the old ferry terminal just off Praça do Comércio), and the sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida. It was not intended to be a permanent fixture, the materials used were not long-lasting, and it was demolished in 1943.

The Estado Novo régime decided to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of O Infante Dom Henrique (or Henry the Navigator in English) by creating a permanent monument on the Belém waterfront. There was, apparently, a competition for a new design, but they then decided to re-use the original one. What resulted was scaled up from the 1940 original - we know this, as the monument’s website shows one of Cottinelli Telmo’s original drawings (the eastern elevation), showing an overall height of 50 metres, while the current monument has a height of 56 metres.

The structure is built to suggest the prow of a caravel, the kind of ship used by many of the early explorers who set sail from the Tejo. Each side of the structure depicts a total of 33 figures connected to the voyages of discovery; at the front, holding a model of a caravel, is Henry The Navigator.

When inaugurated in 1960, the monument was not complete internally: the gallery spaces, auditorium, and lift access to the viewing platform were not finished until the mid 1980s.

You can see most of the Discoveries Monument from the outside, including the controversial bits, such as the cross styled as a Sword of Aviz, suggesting the conquests of all those colonies as some kind of civilising exercise, and the Wind Rose at front of the monument, sponsored by Apartheid South Africa. My take is always to see what the post-revolutionary Portuguese Governments have decided, which has been to leave the monument in place and, indeed, complete it.

It’s worth the cost of entry for the views from the top of the monument, and visiting the exhibitions downstairs. There is usually only a short queue.

Look at the figures depicted at the western side of the monument: all are men, except one: Philippa of Lancaster. And she was English. Her marriage to John I of Portugal secured the 1387 Treaty of Windsor; moreover, she bore him several children, not least the bloke at the front of the monument, Henry the Navigator. They were Portugal’s “Illustrious Generation”. She is arguably more significant than many of the others depicted on the “prow” of the monument.

Trams and buses: same as Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. CAUTION the nearest access point from the Praça do Imperio involves a subway to get under both roadways, and the railway, which also means steps. The floor in the subway is uneven in places.

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