Pink Panther Housing Complex

The studies for development of the Chelas area began in 1960 at the GTH (Lisbon City Council’s Technical Housing Office), under the coordination of the architect Rafael Botelho. The main objective was to develop a diversified urban structure for the riverfront area up as far as Vila Franca de Xira. For what came to be known as the Pink Panther complex, Gonçalo Byrne and António Reis Cabrito took direct inspiration from Gallaratese, Aldo Rossi’s housing complex on the periphery of Milan, which proposed the building of a monument to collective housing. The two architects set out to contrast the large dimensions of the valley with a more habitable environment. To this end they designed a system of blocks consisting of rows of buildings (parallel and perpendicular to each other) demarcating an interior street and a square. The complex is unified by a skin that is painted pink, and also by means of a network of gallery walkways and bridges that create a circulation system above that of the car traffic. The complex’s large scale contrasts with the small scale of the recessed spaces and corners of the circulation spaces and dwellings.