Testimony

MACAO LITTLE BY LITTLE-PLAYING WITH THE SENSES

Carlos Chaves de Almeida*

I cannot promise you anything more than impressions or testimonies of the "senses," which are very much inferior to an exhaustive and complete analysis; yet in a way, this is a relief to me, for it saves me from critical examination by the most avid and technically most demanding readers.

Anyone who "likes" Macao and dares to say so after taking a mere glance at it is doomed to get lost.

Being lost myself, I begin from this position, and so my statement takes the form of a personal look at Macao, validated by years of working in Mozambique, which led me to understand how some people who are passing through see only what they want to see, never talking about what they prefer not to see.

From what I have read, there were times when Portuguese people disembarked in Macao after spending many months at sea, took a deep breath, and plunged into a picturesque Portuguese city on the coast - its land and its people.

My imagination never travelled in that direction, and I was largely unaware of that scenario when I arrived here. However, like them, I liked it and felt a sense of Portuguese pride.

If a first glance revealed its picturesque aspect and nostalgic surfaces, a second glance was often rewarded with undisguised frustration, made worse by the shock of having to make oneself understood - during the first few metres of a taxi ride.

Thwarted by the expectant dimension of the Terreiro do Paço, Macao revealed itself in the fullness of time and in its own way. Through, for example, the Portuguese-style mosaic tiling in the Largo do Senado (Senate House Square), and the Misericórdia, no longer able to see its Atlantic, but instead gathering Pearls in the Delta. What mattered to these visitors were the boots and the earth clinging to the soles that they took away, not the ground they stepped on.

Every country and its people have a value, however and wherever they are.

From land to sea, to look at Macao is to fall in love with it.

I had been well warned by a friend of mine that in order to get a true sense of Macao one must be equipped with five highly-refined senses and a heart. Despite this warning I was still taken by surprise... the city is so very surprising. One is enfolded in an invitation and immediately seduced there by something powerful enough to leave its mark.

The senses intermingle, selecting grave tones, sounds that are more than colourful, and enveloping odours, signs of seduction that we find mysteriously moving.

Those who can resist this must be insensitively indifferent and tormented by remorse for the rest of their days. They will never understand the pleasure of loving Macao, their hearts overcome by playing games with the senses.

It is an encounter with a large portion of history in a small area, to be savoured gradually and slowly. Gradually, in order to gain the measure of what is seen, and slowly, in order to see it.

To arrive here is to gain time and yet lose oneself in time that creates form and then destroys it all. The initial landscape is sombre, its history contained within, where each corner has a truth and dignity that is only conferred and legitimized by the passing of centuries. The architecture of Macao consists of memories, reminiscences, testimonies and many historical landmarks. There are many evocations of Portugal... but there is more besides. Great character in a multiplicity of influences, rich in past achievements, some already pointing to the future.

The São Paulo Church used to have an Italian air about it, built using local and Japanese labour, holding services in Portuguese... nowadays it bears the stamp of Macao. The work of rehabilitating the ruins and its new setting within the city are part of a praiseworthy and successful heritage appraisal scheme.

It was not always so, and the concrete sometimes jarred against the old stonework. The memory becomes increasingly "descriptive and justificatory," with or without the contract details but with a huge builders' yard. Macau has become a construction site! The boom in its progress brought with it certain scares, in the form of ready-to-serve concrete and ready-to-eat dust where, in contrast to Chinese cuisine, the wild "duck" proved to be somewhat tough. There was a feeling that the space was too small for so much activity. It was conquered little by little, even helping itself to more land taken from the sea. One can have a tiny plot of land and live in a small space - only death grants entitlement to a little more... but with no right to any profit. The buildings jostle with one another as they grow - very large but often lacking in quality. There are landfill sites and pilings all over the place as the city's original population attempts to expand. With the joining up of the constituent islands come bridges, first of all to Taipa and perhaps later Coloane.

The inappropriate euphoria has led to reflection and another look at that beautiful, precious and unique architectural heritage. The jewel has been redeemed from the pawnbroker, inventoried and cleaned so that everyone can see what previously had been scarcely noticed.

In the memory of time, we are what we have.

In addition to the land, the sea that frames it has been put in order and embellished. Macao smells of the sea and is a floating city exuding a salty tang. Looking across the corniche, its waters seem to be suspended or deciding on a course of action laden with indolence. The yellowish hue of the bay is reflected in the Macanese facades, adorned with woodwork that has become blackened with time, cut in a filigree style and judiciously softened with plasterwork.

Time and tradition have given their blessing to the artist's technique and patience, leaving their mark on the edge of the Chinese-style roofs, the red doorways, delicately cut away with matching ironwork, the fine Persian woodwork, the welcoming floorboards, and the detailed stone sculptures at the entrance. The work reveals an impressive respect for the passing of time and has the appearance of having been well thought out. This being so, I am in awe of the scale of the spontaneity of the craftsmanship.

Studied from the first sketch, and forming part of the architectural composition, is the bamboo scaffolding, arranged in a more than perfect network, with at least a dozen and a half scarlet inscriptions with painted offerings in gold given by so many people in praise of so many others.

Other people - there are always more people here - continuously pass by in an counter-clockwise direction, some pretending to be in a hurry, others not at all concerned. They do not walk but glide noiselessly by without so much as grazing the granite slabs or the Portuguese-style mosaic paving. People who pass through time, seemingly never to have been any different. Their age is a riddle although one might guess that some of them are carrying with them a great deal of the past, an age without a sell-by date. But they are happy to be alive, moving their bodies and exercising their minds as if afraid to stop. There are also many young people, carrying the future with them and allowing life to open up with smiles. A mass of humanity that lends colour and scale to the city, its outline drawn on a small piece of land (when sketched on the tiny plot!), a certain cosiness created by houses made to measure. Life outdoors, in streets that are both twisting and straight, narrow rather than wide, in alleys and passageways where conspiratorial dealings are arranged for later in the plazas or squares.

This is urban planning for an area that is small but mature, surprising more than anything for its refined human scale. It is good to stroll through Macao: we feel involved, embraced and assimilated. We feel at home in the street, such is the sensation that we shall never leave there, even without ever having been there. Street-sellers, hawkers and little shops sell everything one could wish to buy. We wander around indecisively yet captivated, wavering between what we actually need to buy and what is not a necessity - the law of availability and temptation. We find ourselves confused by the number of turns and we can hardly tell where the architecture ends and the cooking begins. Or "vice versa," since here eating is a vice - "it isn't the stomach that's hungry" - it is the food that is seducing us. The passer-by only has to open his nostrils and close his eyes in order to be immediately ensnared.

In the streets, at busy times of the day, boxes, crates and baskets are loaded and unloaded, ranged in piles or moved by someone inside them with only their feet showing, in a kind of ritual of marching and ornamentation.

The majority of Macao's districts are bursting at the seams whilst others show few signs of life. Some more recent urban developments are on a small scale, demonstrating considerably more use of the ruler and calculus. In terms of scale or of the cloning of quadrature, there is a certain dichotomy in the urban environment that is still something new. The separation between districts often consists simply of a pedestrian crossing, but it is as if we have left Macao and are completely taken by surprise: far more earthworks than people. It will also take time before the new people living in the new blocks fill the pavements with life, settle down in the many intersections, personalizing them, making each one different and giving them an identity. Then various scents will emerge, with aromatic vapours and spiced odours. In a short time the last few ghosts will depart and the new inhabitants will settle down. Perhaps those are the only places lacking life today.

It is easy to believe that here and there, some of the designers' original intentions must have been misrepresented or temporarily suspended, thus jeopardizing the completion of the work. This is my feeling about the "Gate of Understanding" where the exterior details are either temporary or unfinished. Again, in terms of the exterior details, it seems that because the surrounding part of the base has not been constructed, the tall palisade has a somewhat gaunt appearance or is merely denuded, creating the illusion of wading in the sea at low tide with one's trousers rolled up.

In addition, there appears to be no particular empathy achieved by the introduction of some of the more recent monuments, either because of failure to achieve proper integration or because the work of art is unsuited to the location. It is a problem of judgement, or rather lack of it, because the merit of the artists is beyond question; even less so when we speak of the results and professionalism of architects who have contributed so much towards making Macao a national and international point of reference, in terms of both town-planning and architecture. I am of course referring to the conscientious and responsible individuals (who are fortunately almost all those involved), whose work expresses a quality that leaves us with a sense of pride. In terms of the standard of architecture of the remaining minority, the worst that can be said of it is the truth itself.

Macao is now asserting itself as an urban architectural unit, witness to an assemblage of conspiratorial and affectionate images, unrivalled among the best-known Asian destinations. The most important values of this patrimony has taken root, thanks to meticulous and major efforts to wards restoration. It is never too late. These stones shall never again diminish the mark of understanding for us all.

Translated from the Portuguese by PHILOS - Comunicação Global, Lda. www.philos.pt

*An architect (Esbal, 1968) who has practised in Portugal, Mozambique and Nigeria. In addition to architecture, town planning and design, he is also involved in painting, drawing, the study of medals and graphic design. He has received awards both in Portugal and abroad.

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