Former Prison and Court of Appeal of Porto

The former Prision and Court of Appeal of Porto (Cadeia e Tribunal da Relação do Porto), now home to the Portuguese Centre for Photography (CPF), exemplifies historic building rehabilitation not only through the high-quality project led by architects Eduardo Souto Moura and Humberto Vieira but also due to a strategic maintenance plan developed over recent decades based on multidisciplinary diagnosis and careful monitoring.

Since the prison’s closure in the mid-20th century, several preservation efforts commenced, initially led by the Portuguese Institute of Cultural Heritage (IPPC), to safeguard this cultural, historic, and structural heritage. Initial cleaning actions took place in the 1980s, followed by an in-depth architectural, constructive and archaeological study that revealed the building’s construction history dating back to 1765.

This multidisciplinary knowledge helped shape an intervention strategy later executed by Eduardo Souto Moura and Humberto Vieira during the extensive rehabilitation for the installation of the CPF within Porto 2001 – Capital of Culture.

The various intervention narratives are shared in this edition by architect Isabel Sereno from the Northern Regional Directorate of Culture, responsible for overseeing actions between 1986 and 1993, and engineer Esmeralda Paupério from FEUP, responsible for technical inspection, diagnostics, and monitoring since 2009, under the leadership of FEUP professor and engineer António Arêde, director of the Seismic and Structural Engineering Laboratory (LESE).

This intervention achieves a harmonious dialogue between memory preservation, functional adaptation, and rigorous civil engineering science applied to preserving Porto’s historic heritage.