The Estufa Fria, Lisbon's greenhouse
The Estufa Fria is Lisbon’s most exceptional greenhouse . It was built on the top of a deactivated basalt quarry, used for decades as a deposit for plants brought in from other parts of the world. As the years went by, the plants began to "cling to the place" and the idea of transforming it into a greenhouse took shape. It opened to the public in 1933, with a project by the artist / architect Raul Carapinha (1876-1957), and it was expanded in 1975, with the construction of the Hot Greenhouse and the Sweet Greenhouse, for tropical and equatorial plants. Several circumstances led to successive interventions of great quality but of narrow scope – the exterior arrangements and the main façade (Keil do Amaral, 1949), the “nave” (Edgar Cardoso 1950’s), the recent restoration of the shading structure which was in risk of collapsing (J. P. Falcão de Campos + Appleton & Domingos, 2013). Now that Lisbon has kicked off the year as European Green Capital 2020, the