ARCHITECTURE - Memoria Expo 98

Modernity on the riverside

By the end of the 80s, Lisbon’s east end was a vast area that had become polluted and decrepit. Antiquated industrial facilities, oil storage deposits and old military warehouses were all lumped together with an obsolete slaughterhouse and an open-sky rubbish tip. The aim was to avoid the waste which had marked other international expositions, and this was achieved by choosing this area as the Expo’98 site. This complete overhaul brought the area back to life and after the end of the event it was transformed into a new city neighbourhood.

A 5 km strip along the river was reborn!

It all began with the dismantling of the structures and facilities located in this area. They were taken down and around 35,000 tons of oil industry steel was sent for recycling in electric iron and steelwork kilns. During the initial stage, re-use was the order of the day: the granite cubes which paved the existing roads and paths were used for the new traffic systems; concrete products were recycled into crushed aggregate; stone masonry and brick debris were crushed and then incorporated into sanitation processes and used for soil improvement.

When it came to construction, the buildings of Expo’98 were divided into two categories: permanent and temporary. Why not set out to discover the architectural landmarks which were so magnificent during Expo’98 and which have left a modern mark on the city?

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