Article:

Any field of history is full of themes, more or less defined and/or immutable. In design history continuity and change had been, more often than not, two of these major themes (Heskett 1980: 7; Raizman 2003: 12), commonly understood as leading opposing poles on the design evolution equation and quite summarized on the dichotomy traditional-modern. Due to almost intrinsic connections between design, industry, technology and, broadly, progress, traditional was repeatedly considered the harmful one. If in Portugal Design was developed during an autocratic ultra-right regime (1933-1974), it’s important to understand how these themes were handled, specially during the first decades when Art assumed a fundamental stand of official moral and socio-politic indoctrination achieved through an assertive propaganda endeavour. The case study chosen for this dichotomous relation analysis is the construction and decorative programs of the first set of Pousadas established during the 1940’s by the regime. Intended as models for the modernization of the national tourism industry, they were also conceived to conform the image of the Portuguese people and nation, as such emerging as a Portuguese home ideal. Acknowledging perceptible differences in each project, this essay aim is to understand where both themes are discerned: how they converge and induced the general concept and its final results; and how these could be viewed as the result of this regime dual, oxymoronic efforts on modernizing an underdeveloped country and simultaneously keeping it lost in a glorified past.