Back to the Gulbenkian Art Library, 26 Years Later
Escaping Lisbon’s 37°C heat, I returned to the Gulbenkian Art Library 26 years later and found myself reflecting on memory, curiosity, ambition, and the quiet places that shape us (me).
Lisbon reached 37°C today.
Part of the reason I ended up spending the early afternoon in the Gulbenkian Art Library
was simply to escape the heat. But after a few minutes inside, the weather outside almost stopped mattering.
Perfect temperature (great air conditioning!), comfortable chairs, old wooden desks unlike any I’ve seen elsewhere, built the right way, in so many ways, a view over the gardens, and the kind of silence that makes it easy to think.
Some places seem to slow time down.
I still had my library card from 2000. I even got a new physical one. While renewing it, I chatted with the librarian, who’s been working there for decades. She told me someone had just called to offer the library the 98,000 books that belonged to his grandfather, who had recently passed away.
Ninety-eight thousand books. Out of curiosity, I later worked out what that meant (yes, I asked an LLM, hopefully it didn’t hallucinate too much). Somewhere around 2.5 to 3 kilometres of shelving. An entire lifetime (and a lot of money spent, I bet) collected on shelves inside one house.
The last time I regularly came here, to this library, I was 19, studying communication. Our university was just down Avenida de Berna. We’d come here to work on assignments, wander through the shelves and spend afternoons in what already felt like one of Lisbon’s special places.
I remember being impressed by the library itself. The silence. The furniture.
The feeling that someone had built this place properly, with pleasure and intent.
I also remember looking for information about the painter José Malhoa, from my hometown of Caldas da Rainha, and finding a publication titled The Conquest of Lisbon by a Man from Caldas.
My friends called me “Caldas” at the time. I wore the nickname proudly. I remember reading that title and thinking: that’s what I want too. Build a life in Lisbon. Succeed.
Today, 26 years later, I found myself sitting in the same chair. It still feels just as comfortable. I’m 45 now.
The path between those two afternoons wasn’t exactly the one I imagined. There was journalism, technology, storytelling, data visualisation, podcasts, interviews.
Life rarely follows the version you write in your head at 19 — although I wasn’t big on specific plans. I’ve often said to myself over the years that one of my goals in life is to “make right by” the curious, creative kid I was at 7, 8, 9 and 10 years old.
I don’t know if there’s ever a clear answer to that. But it felt good to come back. To remember where I started, in a way. To realise that some places don’t just preserve books. They preserve pieces of us.
Before leaving, I wandered through the shelves one last time and found a beautiful two-volume work on typography. I leafed through it. And, of course, I took a few photos and came away with a few ideas. Serendipity works well, if you’re open to it.
