Rotunda da Boavista, officially known as the Praça de Mouzinho de Albuquerque, is a large

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford En ...

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It honours

Joaquim Augusto Mouzinho de Albuquerque Joaquim Augusto Mouzinho de Albuquerque (12 November 1855 – 8 January 1902) was a Portuguese cavalry officer. He captured Gungunhana in Chaimite (1895) and was governor-general of Mozambique. He was a grandson of Luís da Silva Mouzinho de Albuq ...

, a Portuguese soldier who fought in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

during the 19th century.

History and symbolism

A column in the middle of the rotunda (''Monumento aos Heróis da Guerra Peninsular'') commemorates the victory of the Portuguese and the British against the French troops that invaded Portugal during the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...

(1807–1814). The column, slowly built between 1909 and 1951, is a project by the celebrated Porto architect

José Marques da Silva José Marques da Silva (18 October 1869 – 6 June 1947) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese architect and educator. Life and work Training José Marques da Silva was born at 113 Rua de Costa Cabral, in Porto, on 18 October 1869. His architectur ...

and the sculptor Alves de Sousa. The column is topped by a lion, the symbol of the joint Portuguese and British victory, which is bringing down the French imperial eagle. Around the base are sculptures of soldiers and civilians, the latter representing the people of Porto caught up in disaster on 29 March 1809 when the bridge (the Ponte das Barcas, supported by twenty linked boats) they were crossing to flee from Napoleon's troops collapsed, and more than four thousand people drowned in the River Douro. Completion of the column was delayed by two World Wars, and the monument was finally unveiled in 1952, some years after the deaths of both the sculptor and the architect, thanks to the dedicated work of Marques da Silva's daughter and son-in-law,

Maria José Marques da Silva Maria José Marques da Silva (1914-1996) was a Portuguese architect who, like her celebrated father, designed buildings in her native city of Porto. In 1943, she became the first woman to graduate as an architect from the Porto School of Fine Ar ...

and David Moreira da Silva, themselves also architects.

Location

The ''

Casa da Música The Casa da Música is a concert hall in Porto, Portugal. It was designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and opened in 2005. Designed to mark the festive year of 2001 in which the city of Porto was designated European Capital of Culture, it was the ...

'', Porto's modern music venue, is located in the Rotunda da Boavista. The Rotunda da Boavista has 31416 m² of area and there are eight streets reaching this roundabout: * Avenida da Boavista (twice) * Rua de Caldas Xavier * Rua da Meditação * Rua de Júlio Dinis * Rua de Nossa Senhora de Fátima * Avenida de França * Rua de Cinco de Outubro

References

External links

Rotunda da Boavista / Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotunda Da Boavista Squares in Porto