Opening on 17 March 1988, precisely fifty years after the Municipal Architecture Prize was set up, the exhibition Arquitectura Premiada em Lisboa: Prémio Valmor. Prémio Municipal de Arquitectura was an initiative of Lisbon City Council (CML) and was organised by Lisbon’s city museum, Museu da Cidade, which is run by the Council. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) hosted the project on the first floor of the Modern Art Centre (MAC). The Exhibitions and Museography Department was responsible for setting up the exhibition and providing technical support for a series of conferences to run alongside it.

Although the theme was 50 years of the Municipal Architecture Award (set up in 1938 but first awarded in 1943), the first order issued by the councillor for culture, Victor Reis, established that the initiative would include the Valmor Award, bequeathed in the 1897 will of the last Viscount of Valmor, Fausto Queirós Guedes (Peso da Régua, Portugal, 1837 – Paris, France, 1898) and first awarded in 1902.

This decision was justified by the fact the two prizes were “inseparable” and together reflected “the architectural trends and production in Lisbon this century” (Order from the Mayor’s office, 31 Aug. 1987, Gulbenkian Archives, SEM 00380).

The two awards had recently been merged (in 1987) to form the Valmor Award–Municipal Architecture Award. It remains in this format today, a result of this joint history that the exhibition celebrated (see http://www.cm-lisboa.pt/viver/urbanismo/premios/premio-valmor-e-municipal-de-arquitetura [accessed on 29/11/2017]).

Nonetheless, an important proviso can be found in the exhibition catalogue, tying it to something greater than a commemoration. Right in the “Preliminary Note”, written by councillor Victor Reis, we can read that “[the exhibition] does not aim to be a mere retrospective of the works (...) given these awards in Lisbon over the last eighty years. At a time when civil construction is clearly growing (...) it is an appeal (...) for greater engagement with the construction of the city” (Arquitectura Premiada em Lisboa: Prémio Valmor. Prémio Municipal de …, 1988).

It is in the light of this challenge that the exhibition and related conferences attain their full historiographic relevance.

An analysis of the catalogue makes it clear that “Awards”, the central section of the exhibition, included 70 information panels covering the time period from 1902 to 1982. This included 43 buildings which won the Valmor Award; 11 winners of the Municipal Architecture Award; 15 honourable mentions; the 1982 winner (awarded only in 1984), when the two prizes were awarded jointly for the first time, and the honourable mention of 1983, the only award made that year.

Of the eight decades in this period, only the second honourable mention of 1904 was not included. However, by not dealing with the 1984-1988 period, the wish to include “at least one panel for each building that received an award or honourable mention” expressed in Victor Reis’ initial order did not come to fruition. Nevertheless, the panels met the requirement to contain “as well as descriptions, (...) graphic elements from the building plans and (...) old and more recent photographs”. That early document was echoed in the “FACTS” section, where “different documents of historical interest related to these awards” were exhibited:

1 - Portrait of the 2nd Viscount of Valmor, oil on canvas, 92x73 cm, 1888, by Léon Bonnat (Baiona, Françe, 1833 - Monchy-Saint-Éloi, Françe, 1922); 2 - Photograph of a bust of the 2nd Viscount of Valmor, bronze, 1904, by sculptor Teixeira Lopes (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 1866 - Alijó, Portugal, 1942), located in what is now Largo da Academia Nacional de Belas Artes; 3 - Manuscript of the Will of the 2nd Viscount of Valmor, 1897; 4 - Several views of the awarding of the diplomas for the Valmor Award in 1943, 1945, 1967; 5 - In the “Plaques” section, some fragments of the Valmor Award plaque of 1907; 6 - In the “Diplomas” section, some diplomas belonging to the architects given the award; 7 - In the “Legislation” section, legal documentation regarding the Valmor Award, dating from 1902 and 1942, two sets of regulations for the 1943 Municipal Architecture Award and the first regulations for the joint award, dating from 1982.

The attention given to the award criteria over the decades restated appeals for greater engagement in the already mentioned “Preliminary Note” and was complemented by a review that Ana Cristina Leite published in the catalogue.

Further confirmation of this critical vocation could be found in the event running in parallel to the exhibition, planned since the outset of the initiative. There was a proposal addressed to the councillor Victor Reis by architects José Manuel Fernandes and Manuel Graça Dias, dated 20 November 1987, for a series of conferences. This included most of the agenda for the series of conferences called “Architecture Awards and the City”, held on 28-30 March 1988 in the FCG’s Auditorium (Proposal for a conference on the theme “Architecture Awards and the City”, n.d., Gulbenkian Archives, SEM 00380); Programme of Conferences “Architecture Awards and the City”, n.d., Gulbenkian Archives, SEM 00380; “CAM: Prémio Municipal de Arquitectura”, Colóquio.Artes, no. 77, Jun.  1988, p. 74).

The press was also sensitive to the possibility for critical confrontation that the exhibition offered regarding the history of this architectural heritage and the urban development policies that affected it. Comparing the past and present of some of the buildings, a contrast that was furthered explored in the exhibition, Ana Paula Avença ends her article for the O Dia newspaper with the following question: “Might the prizes be nothing more than plaques that end up being forgotten?” (Avença, O Dia, 20 Mar. 1988).

Belonging to the field of architecture, the exhibition and conferences meant it was highly appropriate for the MAC’s programming, highlighted by its director, José Sommer Ribeiro, in a note to FCG president, José de Azeredo Perdigão, dated 22 January 1988 (Note by the Exhibitions and Museography Department, 22 Jan. 1988, Gulbenkian Archives, SEM 00380).

The photographs available show that there were a large number of visitors on the opening day, which would in part have been due to the importance of urban development at the end of the 1980s and reflects the good institutional partnership between Lisbon City Council and the FCG.

Additionally, it should be remembered that the plans for the FCG main office building and gardens had been given the Valmor Prize in 1975, ex aequo with the Sagrado Coração de Jesus church in Rua Camilo Castelo Branco, Lisbon.

The exhibition included, as well as the relevant information panel, the diploma awarded to the owner, the FCG, the architects Alberto Pessoa (1919-1985), Pedro Cid (1925-1983) and Rui Athouguia (1917-2006), who were responsible for the building, and the landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Teles (1922) and António Viana Barreto (1924-2012), for the design of the gardens. The central corridors of the FCG’s main building currently exhibit a copy of that diploma, the graphic design of which is based on a drawing (c. 1930) by modernist painter António Soares (Lisbon, Portugal, 1894-1978).