Collaboration protocol for the creation of the Museological Centre of the old União typography

The protocol signed in the old art room of the Municipal Museum of Faro - in the presence of Rogério Bacalhau, Mayor of the City, Paulo Águas, Rector of UAlg, D. Manuel Neto Quintas, Bishop of the Algarve and the Vicar General of the Diocese, César Chantre - takes into account the existence of a significant set of cultural assets of recognised historical and cultural interest, belonging to the old União Typography, located in Faro’s old town, and owned by the Diocese of Algarve.

The first step of this project, enshrined in this protocol, is to carry out a study by a multidisciplinary team from UAlg coordinated by Professor Alexandra Gonçalves, which will lead to the creation of a museum space at the old União typography, which operated from 1909 to 2013. It was created to enable the printing of the Boletim do Algarve, starting in 1910. That publication later gave rise to Folha de Domingo, which still exists today.

In addition to the team coordinator, researcher Patrícia Jesus Palma, scientific coordinator of the project of the Hemeroteca Digital do Algarve (Online Periodicals Archive), Mauro Figueiredo, professor in the area of computing, and Bruno Silva, from the area of media and digital art, are also part of the team.

The team responsible for the study will make an inventory of the collection of the old typography, which was responsible for printing almost all the periodicals published in the region until the first half of the twentieth century; they will also collect testimonies about the space and the documentary study of all the material that exists around the written press of the history of typography and printed culture in Faro and the Algarve region.

In this sense, it should be noted that it was in the city of Faro that the first book in Portugal was printed: the Pentateuco, by Samuel Gacon, in 1487.

The final objective of the study, which will take place over the next year, is “to be able to establish a course and a proposal for a cultural attraction and a new pillar of knowledge creation in the region”, revealed the coordinator of the team responsible, Alexandra Gonçalves, on the sidelines of the protocol signing. "We will try to make this proposal as inclusive and multisensory as possible, meeting the new trends in museology and with greater interactivity," she added. For this purpose, visits to various museum spaces in the press area, in Portugal and abroad, should be made.

Canon César Chantre, Vicar General of the Diocese of Algarve, praised the commitment of the Municipality and UAlg to not drop a project with a very strong meaning - the intention of which was announced in 2017 by the Bishop of the Algarve, D. Manuel Quintas Neto - and which will make it possible to further enrich the city's historic core, where the Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace are also located.

Paulo Águas, rector of UAlg, also highlighted the fundamental role that the future museum may have in the area of “Faro’s old town as a citadel of culture and knowledge” and as a cultural nucleus still unknown to many. To this end, he reinforced the role of the University which, through a multidisciplinary team, intends to go further and “promote an inclusive, intergenerational, multisensory proposal and a meeting point between the culture of the written press and religions that can respond to the global challenges”.

The Mayor of Faro, Rogério Bacalhau, on the other hand, welcomed the signing of a protocol that “had been thought of for several years” and which intends to take the history of what was the great typography of the city of Faro and return it it to the current times. “There is a very valuable physical but also human collection of all the stories that have passed through there, and what this UAlg team will do is build a model of a museum centre to do so, to tell these stories”, explained the mayor, thanking the two institutions with which the Municipality signed this protocol. And he added that “the logic of partnership is a fundamental logic for our cultural project and, in particular, within the scope of the candidacy of Faro and the region to be the European Capital of Culture in 2027”.

“From the very first moment, the Diocese of the Algarve expressed receptivity and encouraged this project and the Church has a very important role not only in the spiritual aspect but also in relation to the heritage of the municipality, which is impeccably well preserved”, he said, adding the decisive role of UAlg - which celebrated its birthday this Friday - and "is certainly the institution that most contributed to the development of the region".