Jardim da Praça de Mouzinho de Albuquerque, Porto

Before these paths and lawns took their present form, this roundabout hosted the São Miguel fair from eighteen seventy-six, after it moved here from Cordoaria. The garden occupies Praça de Mouzinho de Albuquerque, the great traffic circle Porto commonly calls the Boavista Roundabout. Its formal landscaping and the decision to raise the central monument to the heroes of the Peninsular War were made shortly before Portugal became a republic.

Let your gaze follow the planting: sweetgums, oaks, lindens, tulip trees and palms give this central island an unexpectedly varied canopy. In the later twentieth century, the garden held the Porto Book Fair for several years and became an important setting for the city’s São João celebrations. The landscape was subsequently redesigned alongside the construction of Casa da Música, with architects Siza Vieira and Souto Moura involved in that renewal. What you see is therefore a civic garden with layers of Porto life in it: a former fairground, a festival venue, a book-fair site, and the green setting around the monument at Boavista.