The Algarve, the quasi-Mediterranean province of Portugal, a geographically and culturally differentiated region, was the first in the country to experience the consequences of, and to profit from, the consolidation of the Welfare State model in northern Europe: from the 1960s on, being both affordable and somewhat exotic, it became an important magnet for middle-class families in pursuit of the increasingly popular sun-and-sea holiday formula. Tentatively, the Portuguese regime, aided by private entrepreneurs, explored ways of reconciling the economic and political drive behind the process with its own deep-rooted strategy of preserving regional diversity as a valuable quality. The Algarve's regional built identity, translated into modern mass-tourism infrastructure, was instrumental in the endeavour of marketing the country for foreign consumers as simultaneously up-to-date and traditional. Twenty years before, however, the same regional identity was construed, through tourism facilities arising from official initiatives, to contribute to the inward-focused project of nationalism. This essay uses the case of the Algarve and three specific hospitality projects realised over a two-decade interval (one 1930s' state roadside inn and two 1950s' sun-and-sea hotels), to discuss how leisure architecture and regional built identity were combined and manipulated to serve markedly different purposes within the same, southern European, dictatorial regime. © 2013 The Journal of Architecture.
CITATION STYLE
Agarez, R. (2013, October 1). Regional identity for the leisure of travellers: Early tourism infrastructure in the Algarve (Portugal), 1940-1965. Journal of Architecture. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2013.838982
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