Lisbon, Open and Closed Cty: Of the New Readings in Public Spaces

Abstract

This text analyzes the educational and socio-cultural reach of the open-air libraries in 20th century Lisbon, a Portuguese exponent of an international tendency to modernize librarian services. It exposes the limits of cultural modernity in a society in which educational and cultural democratization was very restricted and slow, but where street sociabilities, educational experiences and urban sociocultural dynamism have often been expressive. It is also verified how the educational function of the library varied according to the dominant political-ideological conceptions, moving from the progressive and emancipatory potential of the republican period to the emphasis on censorship and ideological control during the dictatorship. The authorities' desire for domestication of groups of emerging readers faced inexorable options, regarding the press and a more recreational reading, connected to Western cultural industry. In addition, the frequency of these extra-domestic spaces contributed to the gradual liberation of women from patriarchalism, fully assumed in the post-dictatorship.