English
Post Office
Panaji [Panagi/Pangim/Panjim/Nova Goa], Goa, India
Equipment and Infrastructures
The Post and Telegraph Office had two buildings in Panaji which were located in the same urban space, the old Largo do Estanco or de São Tomé. They had been there since the mid-19th century: one to the south, in the space of the old Casa do Estanco, where the Post Office stands today; the other one was to the north. The construction we see today on the south side was built on the site of the old Casa do Estanco that had already been occupied by the quarters of the Goa Special Police, which was still there in 1888. At the end of the following year the building was demolished and its stones sold in public auction, the usual process when the materials resulting from the dismantling of public buildings could not be used in other state-related projects. The new building was constructed in 1893; in October of that year the Postal Services definitively moved to the new facility. The building’s footprint is not much different from its predecessor’s: the volume is simple, with only one floor. It is symmetrically organised vis-à-vis the entrance, which was marked by a galilee. Today, due to changes made in the meantime, it some-what resembles the porches used in domestic architecture. This modification must have been done after 1961. The interior spaces are divided into large rooms that open directly to the exterior. In 1908 plans were made to alter the building by opening five windows, but it is not confirmed that this was done. Photographs from 1914 show that the interior has changed little up to the present. In June of that year the new headquarters of what was then called the Repartição Superior dos Correios [Superior Department of the Post], including the Telegraph and Telephones, was reported completed on the north side of the square. But the work to install the respective services must have dragged on, because only three years later was mention made of the Telegraph service moving to that building. It stood on the site of the old fish bazaar, parallel to the post office building that already existed on the south side, and had a simple rectangular geometry, symmetrical with respect to the entrance. The building has two floors; on the first floor the windows are full-length, with two twin windows in the entrance area. The main façade faces south to the other postal service building, turning its back to the Avenida Marginal. In 1928-29 the structure underwent repairs that did not introduce alterations, despite being more extensive than the routine winter work done after the monsoon. With construction of the second building an attempt was made to regularise the urban grid, perhaps with the old Largo do Estanco and the relationship between the bazaar and the Casa do Estanco in mind. The design and occupation of this space have made this space a simple place of passage nowadays and do not enable the relationship between the buildings and the urban space to be understood.