NETJETS US VOLUME 9 2019

urban primer
Until quite recently, even as Lisbon
roared into the fast lane as a hip
global metropolis—the Berlin of
Southern Europe—its cousin to
the north, Porto, was still stuck in the slow
lane. Portugal’s second city was like one of
the fine old wines to which it lends its name:
Pungent, slow-maturing and suitable for
enjoying in small, unhurried sips.
Riding the wave of Portugal’s new-found
fashionableness, however, the city on the
Douro has pulled off the trick of embracing
modernity, and hugely increased popularity,
while preserving much of its nostalgic
charm. Close observers could see the signs of
imminent change back in 2005, when Rem
Koolhaas’s thrillingly modernist, monolithic
CASA DA MÚSICA (casadamusica.com)
appeared on a downtown roundabout,
overcoming public suspicion to become a
much-loved cultural institution. But it’s
the last half-dozen years in which Porto
has moved into top gear. The decadent
and dilapidated Ribeira district has seen its
riverside tenements lovingly restored as part
of a massive sprucing-up operation. Foreign
investment has duly flooded in, along with an
influx of visitors that has both delighted and
alarmed local residents.
Beyond the old-town nucleus, once
unremarkable neighborhoods are fizzing
with life. Affluent Foz, the well-upholstered
Chef José Avillez in his
eponymous Cantinho
residential district at the mouth of the
Douro estuary, is newly desirable thanks
to chic neighborhood hangouts CAFEÍNA
(cafeina.pt), WISH (fb.com/wishfoz) and
TERRA (fb.com/terrafoz), and the recently
opened, art nouveau-styled VILA FOZ HOTEL
(vilafozhotel.pt). In the past two decades
Bombarda (as the area around Rua Miguel
Bombarda is informally known) has become
a full-on contemporary art hub where
the bimonthly openings at galleries such
as PRESENÇA (galeriapresenca.pt), SÃO
MAMEDE (saomamede.com) and TRINDADE
(galeriatrindade.co.pt) bring international
collectors flocking to this downtown
zone. But as tourism makes inroads into
the city, the Porto art scene has spilled
out of Bombarda into other, sometimes
edgier parts of town: Worth the detour
are A CERTAIN LACK OF COHERENCE
(acertainlackofcoherence.blogspot.com), the
newly cutting-edge GALERIA MUNICIPAL
(galeriamunicipaldoporto.pt) and NUNO
CENTENO (nunocenteno.com), an avantgarde
art space housed in an old stonemason’s
yard on Rua da Alegria that won the 2018
Frieze New York Focus Prize.
Even Vila Nova de Gaia, where for
centuries the port houses have stored their
barrels in silent cellars, is not immune to
the city’s new wave of self-improvement.
COCKBURN’S (cockburns.com) has opened
PAULO BARATA, ALBERTO PLÁCIDO; ILLUSTRATION: JULIAN RENTZSCH; PREVIOUS SPREAD: © MAISON ALBAR HOTELS LE MONUMENTAL PALACE
54 NetJets