Setting Lisbon's riverbanks in motion

摘要

Lisbon's riverfront is an amazing experience, almost surrealistic. Approaching it from the city you go downhill and southwards, towards the sun, the strong white sunlight in the eyes, effacing everything in front of you in a blurring universe of dark asphalt, reflecting railway lines, bright cobblestones, the immense expanse of shimmering water, moving vessels with their horns, church bells ringing from within the city, the clanking of metal emerging from the port, and a smelly mixture of salty Atlantic winds and sludgy silt of the Tagus river. You enter this universe of enchanting sensations when following the recently installed bike trail through Lisbon's port. You enter, it is magic, you quit, it is gone - a very strong yet transient experience as you move through the space. The bike trail itself is of the same nature - it is a temporary project, built in 2009, with strong yet minimal interventions: renovated paving, paint on asphalt, a line of kerbstones, meant only to last until somebody decides to remove it. No more than a vanishing moment in the century-old transformation of Lisbon's riverbank.