A new community and cultural center, Jardins do Bombarda, opens today in Lisbon.

The Jardins do Bombarda cultural and community center in Lisbon, supported by the Largo Residências cooperative, will open to the public this Saturday, and the event will be marked by two days of concerts, visits, workshops, readings and other events with free access.

Jardins do Bombarda occupies part of the old Miguel Bombarda hospital, closed since 2012 and run by state property manager Estamo.

The new cultural and community center includes “gardens for the community, a restaurant-bar, an art store, workspaces, spaces for cultural programs, artist residencies and, until the end of 2024, one of its biggest goals – the Sala Estudio Valentim de Barros”, Largo Residencias said in a statement this week.

Until the end of the year, Jardins do Bombarda will “mainly host outdoor activities, one of which (the most important) is a lounge and meeting room for residents of the area and other areas.”

According to Largo Residencias, “this wish came true after several meetings with Bombarda’s neighbors, in which they exchanged ideas, stories and dreams for the future of this space.”

At the beginning of the year, the cooperative launched a fundraising campaign to finance the work needed to open a new community center.

The Largo Residências plan for various spaces was published on the online page of the campaign “From Quartel to Bombarda”. For example, the Largo building, which housed a day hospital, will house Refúgio housing, a work project involving refugees, a restaurant and offices. Around 30 modular wooden sections will be installed in Alameda das Oliveiras for permanent residents.

The opening of the Jardins do Bombarda to the public is marked by this, and on Sunday there will be concerts, visits, master classes for families, readings, stories, the presentation of the book by Catarina Gomez “Coisas de Loucos” and the first talk of the series “Past, present and future of Bombarda”, in which involves “various movements and individuals who continue to advocate for the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage.”

Largo Residências “materialized” in 2012 at Largo do Intendente, 19, as an art laboratory and hotel, the income of which will serve as a source of support for the artistic creative part of the project.

However, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic precipitated the closure of the hostel, which was eventually used to house migrants who had “contaminated” the disease.

In April 2022, Largo Residências had to leave Intendente and take up residence in the former GNR barracks in Largo do Cabeço da Bola in October of the same year.

At the time, the new space was declared temporary because “the entire barracks area would be subject to significant intervention to create affordable, income-producing housing,” the cultural cooperative said in a statement issued at the inauguration.

In a statement published in January, Largo Residências recalled that during the year at the Largo do Cabeço da Bola barracks it organized “more than 900 socio-cultural programs and training events with more than 80 specific partners for about 50 thousand visitors” . /public”.

In addition, “neighbors and social partners provided a safe, intergenerational and multicultural space that included the participation of climate and gender activist groups, citizens in various conditions of social vulnerability (homeless and refugees), creating a permanent workspace for 40 socio-cultural projects. (individual and collective) covering 190 employees.”

According to this cultural cooperative, “in total, more than a thousand people were involved in the field of culture and social intervention, contributing to an economic impact estimated at 1.3 million euros, according to the turnover of resident enterprises.”

The new cultural and community center Jardins do Bombarda will be open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 00:00, and Largo Residências is holding an “open call” open “at all times” to all initiatives wishing to promote activities in the Jardins do Bombarda. “.