Oh, the Elegant CHIADO!

Chiado, Lisbon's smart quarter, used to be little more than a small steep street (Rua Garrett) lined with shops on either side. But what life! What luxury! What stories to tell! It was the great meeting place of Romantic period. It was there that attentive citizens of Lisbon were able to sound out the latest fashions and the most recent political news. It was there that literary groups were founded; it was there, at the most prestigious theatres, that booing and foot-stamping sessions were organised and many a reputation destroyed in a flash. In 1840, there were cafés in front of whose doors the humble folk would dare not to pass. A few decades later during Lisbon's Belle Époque, Chiado was chosen as the first home of the large department stores. The Grandes Armazéns do Chiado and a little further down, the Grandella department store were the most famous but both were destroyed in the great fire that swept through Rua do Carmo, Rua Nova do Almada, Rua do Crucifixo and Rua Garrett in 1988.

Photographs by Joshua Benoliel for

the magazine Illustração Portugueza,

1909-1913