Historia de una obra nunca realizada. El monumento al Infante Dom Henrique y la autorepresentación del Estado Novo

Abstract

The story of Infante D. Henrique's monument is a story about a monument that never was build; however, counting that the planning phase lasted more than twenty years, it's possible to see the monument as an important case studies to study the Estado Novo self-representation and propaganda from 1933 until 1957. The idea to erect a monument dedicated to the most important personality of Descobridores, arose at the end of nineteenth-century, but it gained a strong importance during the Estado Novo, thanks to the special attention paid by the regime for patriotic virtues pedagogy and the glorification of the Edad de Oro. For these reasons a study about the three contests proclaimed to build the Sagres's monument (1933-35; 1936-38; 1954-57) allows to investigate some cultural political topics of Estado Novo.

The public use of history —thanks to the constant use of some myths and symbols— in the Portuguese national identity process, in particular, the connection between the saudade for the Descobridores' era and the «new future» characterized by a national rebirth; the link between art, arquitecture and politics in a delicate period in which the fascist propaganda used during Thirties ended, and a new cultural politics appeared after the WW2.