People’s Hall
Equipment and Infrastructures
he People’s Hall [Casa do Povo] of Taleigao was inaugurated on 21 August 1961 and is one of two such buildings inaugurated during the last year of Portuguese rule. Saint Michael’s Club of Taleigao later functioned here.
The simple rectangular volume of Taleigao’s People’s Hall was meant to serve the community by providing a multipurpose hall and other rooms to support its activities. The building is arranged asymmetrically vis-à-vis the entrance. The main hall is on the right side of the entrance and contains a stage with respective supports. The room is very open to the outside, with the structure providing rhythmic openings endowed with brise-soleils to control the light. Left of the entrance are rooms to provide support for the community, with a more restrained window arrangement.
The functional and modernist vocabulary is identified with other period constructions. On two of
the building’s faces we can see two basreliefs: on the north façade, with elements recalling agriculture and fishing; on the east façade, a ceramic panel with scenes from daily life, probably by the same author of the Mapusa Market panels, originating in Bicholim. The building is abandoned and in a bad state of preservation.
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