Tallest Buildings in Lisbon

[Rita Ochoa]

Check out the tallest buildings at our capital...

http://www.portutall.150m.com/edif%EDcios/Lisboa/listalisboa.htm

[Paul Clerkin]

so Lisbon buildings are on average higher than Dublin?

[Rita Ochoa]

Without looking at oficial numbers I can say definitly yes, our buildings are on average higher than Dublin. We don't have such a "flat" city and, since medieval ages, we are used to live in appartments (...the romans have been around the place...). ei. in Lisbon's downtown the main buildings (from 1800's) have an average of 6 floors).

Our culture doens't lead us to feel the need to have our own garden or land like in Ireland. Maybe because our weather always gave us more chances to spend more time out, using the plazas, gardens or beaches...

The buildings heights give us more shadows in the cities, helping to refresh the urban space, specially during the Summer but many of of them are not prepared for a big earthquake (...like the one we must be about to have).

[MaximusColumnus]

the drawback of apartments is, is doesn't look as nice. You ca fit more people in, fair enough, but people don't seem to be worried about what the place looks like from the outside. The apartments can be beautiful on the inside and all modern etc, but when driving past, some blocks of flats look like tenements or "poor districts".

You would think though that after mr. de pombal redesigned the downtown area after the 1750 quake, he would have made them more earthquake proof! maybe they build them tall to keep dry on the roof if a tidal wave hits again

by the way, are there any maps available of Lisbon before the earthquake and rebuilding?

[MG]

Is there a downtown modern core or is the city as rebuilt?

[Rita Ochoa]

I can't find any maps online about the earthquake but you can find some information here:
http://nisee.berkeley.edu/lisbon/
http://geology.about.com/library/bl/bllisbon1755eq.htm

Lisbon has 7 hills (1 of them with the castle). The top of the hills haved survived in general to the earthquake/fire/tsunami and are conserved has historiacl areas of the city. The downtown was complety rebuilted according to a plan desgined by Marquês de Pombal who was a very "futuristic" man. That's why we have a very "open" downtown area designed in the XVIII , with large avenues, tall buildings, big plazas suported by a rigid ortogonal grid.
Did I answered your question, MG ?... If not please let me know or write it in portuguese

[Mafalda Ramalho]

I suppose that the high of the buildings doesn't have to relate directly with the city growing it self.

The city skyline given by the tallest building can be very “tricky”. In Lisbon for example (because it’s not “plain”) a tall building can be dissimulated when you are just walking on the streets

... or the tallest building could not be in the city centre. I've been recently in Milton Keynes, (England) and it's a new town where the scale of the buildings on the city centre has nothing to do with height ... and I can compare it to one or two towns in Ireland (from what I’ve seen )

I don’t know if you agree, but for me a tall buildings are not part of the natural growing behaviour of the city but the easy way to increase the profits of land use... they tend to incorporate most of the artificial equipment (elevators, ventilation,...) in order to work!

MaximusColumnus: In the time of Marquês de Pombal they build within the walls a wooden structure that function like a 3d frame that hardly gets destroyed during an earthquake... another preoccupation was the fire (it was what destroyed downtown)... I don’t quite remember anything about “wave proof”!!! ...