A unique
story
The Alexandre Herculano 19 building is situated in a part of Lisbon that was undergoing significant growth following the inauguration of Avenida da Liberdade in 1886. This development was part of the city’s northward expansion plan overseen by Frederico Ressano Garcia (1847-1911), the Chief Engineer of the Lisbon City Council.
This plan involved the construction of residential blocks along the axis of Avenida da Liberdade. To the left, new streets emerged, including Rua Barata Salgueiro, Alexandre Herculano, Rosa Araújo (named after the then President of the Lisbon City Council), Rua Braamcamp, and Rua Mouzinho da Silveira, providing alternatives to the existing Rua do Salitre. During this period, Lisbon was experiencing significant growth, with a distinct character marked by buildings that matched the height of the earlier Pombaline structures, now featuring unique and personalized façades.
These blocks were recently restored under a plan by the Lisbon City Council during the presidency of Pedro Santana Lopes and the Urban Planning Council led by Eduarda Napoleão. Today, they showcase the intrinsic elegance of their diverse façades, reflecting various cultural and aesthetic movements, both international and local, supported by the solid technical advancements of Lisbon at that time.
The design of the building at Alexandre Herculano 19, dated 1893, likely has a French architect as its author, who remains unidentified in the records of the Lisbon City Council.
It is distinguished by the characteristic mansard reminiscent of Aussmann’s Paris, which was highly fashionable at the time, along with the aesthetics and materials that clad it. The apparent asymmetry of certain windows with uneven profiles on the facade, as well as the distinctiveness of the various balconies, are aesthetically incorporated within a framework of balanced precision, seamlessly blending new aesthetic elements into a classical and well-ordered structure.
The project for Alexandre Herculano 19 occupies the empty space between numbers 17 and 21, which were already built at the time, and like the others, it is a typical ‘income’ building. Being longer and set back from the block, similar to a standalone house, each floor has independent access to the main entrance, service entrance, and also an ‘independent room’, where the tenant’s professional activity mostly takes place.
As was common practice at the time, the bedrooms face the interior with natural light coming from two courtyards, while the living rooms face outward, towards the main and rear façades.
The building comprises 6 floors and a store in the basement, originally intended for a grocery store and the sale of wines and fine beverages, featuring a beautiful original oil decoration on the ceiling, with predominant hummingbirds in harmonious pastel colors.
At the time of construction, the interior of the building did not include an elevator, which was installed approximately 30 years later, facilitating interior circulation, now renovated.
During the three decades following its construction, the building housed some occupants who were well-known in Lisbon and national society at the time.
For several years, the building was home to Canon Damasceno Fiadeiro, a student of Egas Moniz and Damas Mora, chaplain of the royal house, confessor to Queen D. Amélia, tutor to Princes D. Luís Filipe and D. Manuel, and private chamberlain to His Holiness, among many other responsibilities.
Dr. Maria Luísa de Saldanha da Gama Van Zeller, an assistant at the University of Medicine in Paris and renowned director of the Alfredo da Costa Maternity Hospital, also resided there.
José de Moraes, a man of literary culture and founder of the famous Moraes Publishing House, which ceased operations in 1999, with the rights to its titles being acquired and reissued by Centauro and António Alçada Batista. The initial owner of the building was Eduardo Laemmert Bulcão, an Azorean nobleman, philanthropist, and prominent figure in Azorean circles, who, like other investors, quickly invested in this newly developed part of Lisbon. He later spent the last years of his life here, residing with his family on the 4th and 5th floors.
Currently, the building is still owned by his family.
Eduardo e Maria Bulcão
Upon stepping inside, visitors are greeted by a splendid ceiling in the entrance hall, adorned with intricately crafted male and female figures, gracefully upholding a large floral medallion.
This hall is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, where intricately paneled walls and Art Nouveau-inspired vestibule doors, boasting asymmetrical details, come together in harmonious elegance.
The interior is lavishly adorned with exquisitely paneled high-scale baseboards, double-paneled doors, palmetto cornices, intricately decorated stucco ceilings—some with original oil paintings in neo-rococo style, while others exhibit a more geometric structure adorned with trompe-l’oeil fruit paintings, mimicking fine woods, a hallmark of the period’s taste.
