A recent CityNerd video on public squares (out on Nebula right now, but not YouTube yet) got me thinking that a good series of OT headers could be on some cool squares from around the world. I love a good square, myself, and assuming I keep this up for more than three posts, I’m going to try to focus on both squares that I’ve been to personally, and ones that I haven’t been to but are just interesting, famous, or cool in some way of another.
Today we’re starting with one that ticks both boxes: Lisbon, Portugal’s Praça do Comércio, which sits in the heart of the city’s Baixa (aka “downtown”), facing the Tagus River.
This part of Lisbon was once the home of the royal palace of Portugal (which is why it’s still called the Terreiro do Paço, or “Palace Yard” by Lisboetas), and there has been a public square here in some form since the early 16th century. However, the modern Praça do Comércio dates to 1755, when the city was leveled by a massive earthquake. In the wake of the disaster, central Lisbon was rebuilt into an elongated grid, with the focal point being the great square on the riverfront.
Offices lining the square were filled with government departments related to customs and port officials, lending the square its name, which translates to English as “Commercial Square. While the square is lined with businesses geared towards tourism today, the surrounding buildings still maintain much of their original purposes, as offices here are still home to the Portuguese Ministries of Marine Defence and Finance, as well as the Portuguese Supreme Court.
If you’ve got any squares or plazas you’d like me to write about in the future, just let me know in the comments. Have a great day!