Like Father, Like Son! Celebrated on the 19th of March, Father’s Day falls on a Wednesday this year. And the best man in the world deserves the best of us, our time and our company. There are many experiences, but our suggestion is to celebrate this day outdoors, as it’s good for you and recommended. Take the week to explore what Lisbon has to offer. Discover the gardens scattered around the city, learn about the history behind them, contemplate the plants and trees, making this a memorable day for the whole family.
The city of seven hills, Lisbon is famous for its picturesque squares and gardens, which offer moments of relaxation in the city centre. The green spaces create the perfect balance between the urban and natural environment and assert themselves as the place where nature and culture meet. As well as contributing to ecological balance and reducing air and noise pollution, and providing a haven for fauna and flora, gardens are also a place for socialising, where locals and visitors enjoy outdoor activities such as picnics, walks, runs and more.
A vital part of the urban centre, Lisbon’s emblematic gardens represent the best of both worlds: nature and the city. It’s important to preserve them, not only for individual well-being, but also for the prosperity of the city as a whole.
Our suggestions:
- Gulbenkian Garden
Among the trees and statues, a group of children play hide-and-seek. By the lake, a few friends have a lively picnic, while in the amphitheatre, there are those who take advantage of the lunch hour to catch up on their reading or simply relax. A family of ducks strolls across the lawn, followed by the watchful eyes of a baby on its mother’s lap. And in the sheltered corners, couples flirt and make promises that time will test.
We are in the garden of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a place of leisure, culture and nature, but also a symbol of the modern movement in Portugal and a benchmark for national landscape architecture. Inherent in the project are its environmental and sustainability concerns, which can be integrated into landscape design, as well as the growing concern with water management in the garden. The use of native plants and the promotion of biodiversity are some of the strategies implemented in the garden.
The space as we know it today is the result of a project by landscape architects António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, drawn up in the 1960s and honoured with the Valmor prize in 1975. Based on a subtle geometry and making use of the national landscape in its ecological and cultural dimension, Viana Barreto and Ribeiro Telles’ proposal presents a unique and new garden, made up of spaces and environments that are familiar to us. This is the modern garden at the height of its expression.
Working in close collaboration with the architects of the foundation’s building complex, Alberto Pessoa, Pedro Cid and Ruy Athouguia, the design of the green spaces was also marked by innovative solutions, present, for example, in the drainage and utilisation of water, the construction system of the lake, the artificial creation of the wet ecosystem on its borders, the planting and fixing of trees on slabs and the use of landscaped terraces.
Since then, the garden has evolved in its physiognomy. The large areas of lawn, in dialogue with young clumps of vegetation and some trees still from the old park, have given way to a leafy and varied forest, where small clearings and surprising nooks and crannies are opening up to the footsteps of those who walk through it. Called maturing, this is a two-way process between nature and man, where the passage of time is compounded by rigorous planning and constant maintenance.
At the turn of the century, the need to adapt the garden to new demands led to a new major intervention, led by landscape architect Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles. The proposal was to maintain the garden’s original concept, controlling the negative aspects of ageing and taking advantage of the interesting aspects created by the natural growth of vegetation. The work already carried out includes clearing and thinning vegetation, opening up new paths and areas of enjoyment and consolidating the garden’s edge, using species from its genetic heritage.
More recently, in 2019, the project by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and Lebanese landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, winners of an international ideas competition for the extension of the Gulbenkian gardens and the redesign of the Modern Art Centre, was presented. The project aims to create a holistic integration of all the landscape elements, building a new dialogue between the museum building and the surrounding garden.
The proposed design is inspired by the “Engawa” typology found in traditional Japanese houses and gardens, creating a low roof that serves as a filter between the museum and the garden, providing a space for visitors to interact with nature and each other. The expansion project is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2024.
All this so that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s garden continues to be a true oasis in the centre of Lisbon, forming part of the lives of new generations of Portuguese.
Address Av. de Berna, 45A, 1067-001 Lisboa
Contact +351 217 823 000
- Ajuda Botanical Garden
Spaces dedicated par excellence to nature, historic gardens are at the same time important parts of our heritage memory.The Ajuda Botanical Garden – the oldest botanical garden in Portugal – is a historic garden, whose historical, scientific and artistic components make it a heritage element of national value. Created in the 18th century, the Royal Botanical Garden of Ajuda came about through the influence of Miguel Franzini, a teacher of King José I’s grandchildren. To realise this idea, the professor invited an Italian botanist from Padua, Domenico Vandelli, who in turn brought Julio Mattiazze with him to help him design the garden.
Marked by the Enlightenment and the scientific ideas that underpinned all the initiatives of that period, this garden was born with the scientific objective of botanical knowledge and not merely as a leisure space. This was the first botanical garden in Portugal designed with the aim of keeping, studying and collecting as many species of the plant world as possible.To start the botanical collection, Vandelli ordered live plants and seeds from the richest botanical gardens in Europe. After that – and because the intention was to make the garden as rich as possible – towards the end of the 19th century, the Royal House sent botanical missions to Portugal’s overseas possessions, with the aim of bringing back herbariums and live plants (thus making it possible to study the local flora). As a result of these various missions, Vandelli managed to install and acclimatise around 5,000 species in the garden. However, after the fall of the monarchy, the garden experienced a long period of neglect.
The restoration project was prepared on the initiative of the Board of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), chaired by Francisco Castro Rego and advised by professors João Pedro Bengala Freire, Fernanda Cabral and Cristina Castel-Branco. Approved in 1993 and carried out between ’94 and ’97, the project to restore the Ajuda Botanical Garden essentially aimed to prepare the garden, as Lisbon’s privileged green space, to welcome the public from home and abroad. On the other hand, one of the objectives that also guided this restoration was the intention to guarantee its botanical origin, and also the enjoyment of the garden in a non-scientific way, so it was necessary to offer the garden as a well-prepared leisure space for the public and overlooking the River Tagus.The restoration project included the creation of the Aromas Garden, specially designed for the blind. Its Braille signs and the plants displayed on raised trolleys make it possible not only to identify the species, but also to touch and smell them.
The Ajuda Botanical Garden is home to Lisbon’s oldest dragon tree, which was transplanted to the garden in 1768 when it was fully grown. Today, it is considered a symbol of the garden and has a high historical and botanical value.
Address Calçada da Ajuda s/n, 1300-011 Lisboa, Portugal
Contact +351 213 622 503
- Amália Rodrigues Garden
“Man dreams and his work is born”. It was precisely around the 25th of April 1974 that architect Ribeiro Telles began working on an old dream, the creation of a green corridor in the city of Lisbon for pedestrians and cyclists – complemented by recreational spaces – with the needs of 21st century Lisbon in mind. It was a dream that came to fruition in 1996 when the Alto do Parque Garden was completed, renamed in 2000 to honour the fado singer Amália Rodrigues. The garden presents itself as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, which as a whole makes up the Green Corridor – which in turn is part of the Ecological Structure of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area – integrated into a new concept of urbanism, dethroning the romantic or neoclassical concepts so much in vogue in more distant decades.
Anyone who wanders around and decides to explore what lies beyond Parque Eduardo VII comes across a garden of singular beauty. Its location, on the southern slope of the ridge that borders Parque Eduardo VII, gives it a unique panoramic view. You can discover the city from two perspectives: Baixa Pombalina, São Jorge Castle and São Pedro de Alcântara, and further away, the Serra da Arrábida and the hill of Palmela Castle.
Close to this area, a hill rises – the highest point in the garden – in line with the Castles of São Jorge and Palmela, from where you can see a magnificent view of the Tagus across the Avenida da Liberdade valley. On the north side of the garden there is another hill facing the flat part of the city, the ‘Colina do Segredo’ (Secret Hill), where you can see the city designed by Ressano Garcia and the mountains of Brandoa.
Located in the Amália Rodrigues Garden, there is a space with a terrace next to the lake, Linha d’água, which serves light dishes and offers a panoramic view of the River Tagus. On Father’s Day, this could be the choice for a family meal in a peaceful and pleasant setting.
The lawn of the garden is reserved only for the free sports areas that allow it to be practised, while the length of the paths allows for a walk with constant alternatives of interest. Conditions are also created for a healthy environment. In turn, strips of grass identical to those that appear, golden, on the roadsides, delimit the area between the clearing and the woods.
An overpass for pedestrians and bicycles connects the Amália Rodrigues Garden to the meadow of the Palace of Justice, continuing all the way to Monsanto.
The Monsanto Green Corridor is a project designed with the city’s future in mind, since Lisbon is moving towards an increasingly dry artificial environment as a result of the high density of buildings and impermeable surfaces. The corridor, which starts at Restauradores, runs along Av. da Liberdade, Parque Eduardo VII, Alto do Parque, the Palace of Justice meadow, Jardins dos Jogos (between Bairro Azul and Universidade de Campolide), Jardins de Campolide, and enters Monsanto through the Parque Florestal Reception Centre – is presented as a continuous structure that integrates various urban green spaces where residents can find a recreational space that will contribute to improving their quality of life.
Address Alameda Cardeal Cerejeira, 1070-051 Lisboa
Contact +351 915 225 592
© Companhia das Cores to Horto do Campo Grande
