"Nourishing the Soul. Cultivating the Land"

Abstract

"Alto da Ajuda, in Lisbon, is home to what was for decades the most important house of the Portuguese royal family: the Palácio da Ajuda (Ajuda Palace). Its Jardim das Damas (Ladies' Garden), located to the north of the palace, reflects both the vicissitudes experienced by the built structure and the ever-changing desires of its inhabitants, with a cyclical alternation of uses and purposes observed throughout its existence. (...) In a future almost enticingly uncertain, others may bear witness to the unfolding of new episodes in this undulating narrative: an earthquake (1775), a royal wooden palace and its garden for leisure and cultivation (1756-1794), which later took the form of generous plots (c. 1827), a refined vegetable garden cultivated following Italian precepts (late 19th century), an almost 'garden party' with a distinctly Portuguese flair (1936-1959), a building site (first half of the 20th century), intensively farmed land (1960s), a building site once again (until 1988), and finally, in an official return to its origins, a reclaimed Baroque garden (1988-2025), until the next adventures and misadventures of the Ladies' Garden. Far from being an intermittent garden, the Ladies' Garden reveals itself rather as a space of intermittent uses: appropriations that alternate and even overlap, within a timeline that, in a way, oscillates between celestial and earthly, spirit and body, nourishing the soul and cultivating the land." - https://follyarch.info/Journal-02