Bolsa dos Comerciantes do Porto, Porto

Porto’s merchants once had to take their negotiations into the open air on Rua dos Ingleses after their trading house closed. That inconvenience led to the palace before you: construction began in October eighteen forty-two, and it became the home of Porto’s Commercial Association. As you take in the façade, notice how deliberately the building combines nineteenth-century neoclassicism with Tuscan forms and English Neo-Palladian ideas.

This historic Porto building now also hosts the city’s cultural, social and political occasions, while remaining within a classified heritage site. Inside, its most celebrated room is the Arab Hall, where nineteenth-century plasterwork covered in gilded Arabic lettering runs across the walls and ceiling; it receives visiting heads of state. The Portrait Room has another feat of craftsmanship: its table, carved by Zeferino José Pinto, required three years of work. The Bolsa dos Comerciantes do Porto is therefore both a monument to the city’s commercial life and a working ceremonial setting.