Mário Cruz photographed vacant buildings that “have been used for too long” as shelters for people in Lisbon and will exhibit the results to “demand” compliance with April on the 50th anniversary of the revolution that overthrew the dictatorship.
“Roof” is the name of the new project (exhibition and book) by photojournalist Mário Cruz, whose motto was the right to decent housing, enshrined in the Constitution.
Over the last ten years, Mário has regularly photographed buildings, factories and schools that have in common the fact that they are vacant.
The photographer, who has won two World Press Foto awards, wanted to reveal “the hidden side of the housing crisis” and demand a solution to the problem.
“If the Constitution guarantees decent housing for all, maybe it’s time to comply. And April 25 should have forced us to comply,” he says.
At Lusa’s request, Mário Cruz chose three points on his alternative map of the city, “very different” from the one that guides tourists.
The first stop is at a place that is “symbolic” of how “the State fails every day”: in front of Belém Palace, Mário Cruz recalls that the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, made it his mission to “end homelessness in the city”.
It turns out that, behind his official residence, “there are people who don’t have a place to live” and who occupy vacant buildings, side by side with private condominiums.
“They work, but there’s no way they can pay the rent on a house or buy a house,” he describes, stressing: “These people are homeless, you just don’t see them on the streets.”
The second stage takes us to the Chelas area, where a dirt track lined with colorful flowers ends at an 18th century farmhouse.
The clothes laid out are proof of life in the boarded-up building, whose wall has crumbled so much since Mário photographed it in April 2014 that even the plaque reading “Câmara Municipal de Lisboa” has fallen down.
At the time, at the age of 63, “Mr. Gomes” – the face of the exhibition poster – had lost his job and found a “makeshift roof […] permanently in danger of collapsing”, which he accessed via a ladder.
Mário distinguishes three moments in the decade he photographed: the financial crisis of 2013/2014, which was thought to be temporary, the hope of recovery in 2019/2020 and the current “breaking point”.
“I went back to some of the places in 2023 and people stayed […], because they find it tremendously difficult to rent a house in the Portuguese capital,” he says.
Not far from there, in Marvila, a Estado Novo industrial school is used as a shelter for dozens of people.
The dimensions of the building, with a capacity for 850 students, are impressive. Over broken glass and tiles, you walk through the wings that once housed professional courses in mechanics, electronics and others.
The school, decommissioned in 2010 to allow the Third Crossing of the Tagus to pass through (still to be done), is still standing, albeit in an advanced state of disrepair, but this month it became known that the demolition is going ahead.
Today, “ordinary workers, pensioners, […] some immigrants” have been living there for more or less a year, describes Mário, who highlights the symbolism of reaching the 50th anniversary of the Revolution and having “a school still from the Estado Novo era housing children from April 25”.
At 59, João makes his home in two rooms, with a door and a carpet. Inside, a bed, a table and three chairs. On the wall, the Benfica squad next to an image of Our Lady of Fatima.
In what he photographed, he recorded “the attempt” by residents to give “some dignity” to the spaces where they live: “People try to turn these places into […] real homes.”
Originally from Cape Verde, João lived on the streets before moving into the old school four years ago, where he says he found a “good atmosphere”.
There are “about 15 people” living in the wing where he is and each one has their own stove, in a makeshift kitchen, which is “enough to make pitéu”. For the rest, João has to go “into the bush” and use the public toilets.
“Life set me up,” João laments, in the minutes he spent talking to Lusa, whose presence attracted the police, who regularly patrol the area.
It’s in the old school that Mário mentions the “issue” that is “very confusing” to him: the state’s wasteland.
“It’s almost incomprehensible how, for so long, […] there has never been a serious investment in public housing and in the use of many of these buildings, which, I’m sure, could provide a decent home for many people,” criticizes the founder of the Narrativa association.
The last stage of the tour is the former Recolhimento das Merceeiras, a building in the heart of Lisbon that the Santa Casa da Misericórdia has given over to exhibit “Roof”.
Located in the Sé area, where the contrasts between apartments overcrowded with migrants and the ‘tuk tuks’ that wind their way around Europe’s number one tourist destination are visible, the building has allowed Mário to design an immersive exhibition that will transport visitors into the atmosphere of the places photographed.
“Anyone who visits this exhibition will have to really look for the photographs, in the same way that I often looked for the people in these places, and they will have to enter different houses and in each house they will see a piece of all this history,” he explains.
At the same time, the photographer wants to show that “it’s very easy to fall” into this harsh reality.
“It’s enough not to have the family support that many of us probably have, it’s enough to lose a job, it’s enough for the lease not to be renewed and we easily fall into a situation of having to find a makeshift roof over our heads,” he warns.
The “Roof” exhibition, which is free to enter, will open on June 27 at 3pm and will run until June 9.
