The rehabilitation of a building as important as the former Telegraph House, now the Baltasar Lopes Foundation, required a useful study of its entire history, as well as a careful analysis of all its spaces to better achieve the functionality and adaptability necessary for the installation of the Foundation's project. Thus, the opening of a large gap between the two larger rooms, both on the ground and first floors, made it possible to fit the program and rethink the dynamics of the use of the spaces.
The building's state of conservation made it possible to adopt a rehabilitation strategy based on the recovery of all the wooden elements, on the requalification of the exterior space, making use of it for living or multifunctional spaces, and on the conservation of the window frames and all the elements that left visible the architectural characteristics of a building from the beginning of the 20th century. The introduction of all the new elements, required by the program, was thought of in the most neutral way possible, so as not to interfere with the language of the building.
The Baltasar Lopes Foundation constitutes an innovative center of knowledge not only of the work of this important figure in Cape Verdean culture but also of contemporary culture. This project, in addition to its design as a cultural center, also aimed to be an example of architectural rehabilitation of a striking building of the time of English influence in the city. Respecting the critical and current thinking that marked the career of the author Baltasar Lopes, the Foundation will be able to contribute, together with different agents of civil society, to conceiving culture as an opportunity to build the future.
The ISCEE, Instituto Superior de Ciências Económicas e Empresariais, aware of the urgent need to rehabilitate such a building, invested in this process, with the ground floor remaining with a programme linked to this institution for a set period. During this period, the coexistence of the Baltasar Lopes Foundation and the ISCEE project determined the programme as follows. The ground floor with a library, a computer centre, toilets and some support spaces for the activities linked to the latter institution. In the first floor rooms, to highlight the work of Baltasar Lopes to the visitor, there will be an exhibition on his biographical and literary career, as well as the Jean Michel Massa Library, which will include a collection of three thousand books donated by the referred French intellectual, an emeritus professor and specialist in Cape Verdean culture.
Location. Alto Mira Mar, São Vicente, Cape Verde
Date. 2013
Architect. Ângelo Lopes
Collaboration. Leão Lopes, Nuno Flores, David Monteiro, Ernestina Cândido
Photography. Ângelo Lopes e Hugo Lopes