On the Trail of Baltazar Castro, a Portuguese Restorer in India

Abstract

In 1950 the architect Baltazar Castro arrived to the Portuguese Estado da Índia, commissioned to co-ordinate restorations to its monuments. Baltazar Castro was the former director of the Service of National Monuments from the DGEMN (the Portuguese state entity responsible for public works). The Portuguese dictatorial regime of that period used the ‘great national Past’ as a propagandistic instrument and, therefore, the architectural monuments, to be easily recognized and identified, had to recover their ‘original pure shape’ by reintegrating and removing from them ‘spurious additions’ obstructing or deforming their perception. This kind of patrimonial intervention began to be criticized, especially from the end of the 1940s onwards, coinciding with Baltazar Castro’s retirement from the DGEMN and his commission into the Estado da Índia. This article focuses on Baltazar Castro’s interventions in India, reflecting his previous practice in Portugal: in some works, an idealized image was intended to be recreated for the monuments, causing their adulteration by acquiring an image that they never had before. His action had a huge impact on the architectural heritage of Old Goa, some of it classified today as World Heritage by UNESCO.