A hyperreal first-place: Portugal dos Pequenitos theme park and the narrative of origins

Abstract

This article analyses a nation-theme park in Portugal. Located in Coimbra and built in the 1940s, when Portugal was a colonial empire and was under the rule of a right wing dictatorship, the park was designed as a pedagogical device for children to learn about the nation. In the park, the whole of the nation was represented by miniature replicas of buildings representing European Portugal and its overseas territories. Seventy-five years after its construction and with little changes to its material structures, this theme park is the most visited tourist attraction in Coimbra. This paper presents the result of ethnographic work carried out with Portuguese visitors to the park so as to understand the affect the place has over Portuguese visitors. The work undertaken with the latter has allowed to identify a narrative of ‘firstness’ that constructs the park as a hyper-real first-place by Portuguese visitors.

Keywords:

• Theme park
• colonial nation
• affect
• tourism, first-place

Notes

1. For a more detailed information on the origins of the park see Santos (2014a, 2014b).

2. The earliest reference to entrance fee was found in the Proceedings of the local Junta, dated of the 15th of May 1945.

3. The Coimbra university seventeenth/eighteenth century buildings, a UNESCO WHS since 2013, have in 2015 overtaken Portugal dos Pequenitos as the most visited attraction (see Universidade de Coimbra 2012, 2015).

4. They are all second year architecture students, and although there are some mature students among the group, the majority is in their late teens early twenties.

5. Portuguese undergraduate students of Architecture are often taken on field trips to the park due to the fact that the park holds a specific historical perspective on Portuguese popular architecture as viewed by one of the most influential Portuguese architects of the early twentieth century, Cassiano Branco. The architectural and artistic quality of the park has made it the subject of seminal writings by Portuguese architects, such as, for instance, Bandeirinha (1996).

6. For a detailed analysis of the Carrolian experience provided by Portugal dos Pequenitos’ use of the miniature in this process of ‘enchantment’ of visitors, see Santos (2014a).

7. The only noticeable addition in over 50 years to the park’s material display took place in 2015 for the celebrations of its 75 years when a new regional house was inaugurated.

8. Exception made to the Brazil pavilion where no objects are on display (the pavilion was ransacked in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution): in it, and since the year 2000 when the 500 years of the Portuguese landing on Brazil were celebrated, visitors are offered an animation film on the sighting of Brazil by the Portuguese navigators.

9. For a more detailed description and analysis of the role of this world-map, see Santos (2014a).

10. The museums are: the Period Clothing Museum and the Maritime Museum (displaying miniature examples of types of clothing and of ships, respectively), and, from 2013 to 2015, the Barbie Museum, displaying over 300 Barbie dolls. In 2015, the Barbie dolls exhibition was substituted by one of dollhouses pieces of furniture and household objects related to the different regions of the country. These pieces were once part the park’s original Museum of the Child.

11. Cassiano Branco’s design of the park, with larger scale houses in the Overseas Portugal section in comparison to the smaller scale houses of the Mainland Portugal section, was related to the pedagogic nature of the park: the larger scale miniatures pavilions with their museum-like interiors were designed as learning devices for older of-reading-age children, while the Mainland houses, that originally were fully furnished according to both regional types and livelihoods, were intended as reading-free learning devices for younger children (Santos 2014a).

12. Children up to 2 years, free entry; 3 to 13 years, discount rate; adults 14 to 64 years, full rate; 65+, discount rate.

13. I am thankful to the park’s director, Lúcia Monteiro for the continuous support to this research, namely through the supplying the park’s statistics here presented.

14. For example, in the school year 2012–2013 the 43.000 school visits brought 36.000 children to the park.

15. Several authors, both Portuguese (such as for instance, Almeida 2004; Araújo and Maeso 2011; Matos 2012; Peralta 2015) and non-Portuguese (such as for instance, Feldman-Bianco 2001, 2007; Machado 2004; Sieber 2004; Fikes 2009) have underlined the fact that Portugal has not yet carried out a critical analysis of its colonial rule and, as Sieber refers (2004, 549), it has not even fully superseded the ideologies of the right wing Estado Novo regime. I have written elsewhere (Santos 2014b; forthcoming) on this lack of self-questioning over the colonial rule; I have also written on the role the way the history of the nation is taught plays in the weaving of this patriotic pride for the colonial endeavour as expressed by the majority of the students (Santos 2014b). As Peralta (2015) also stated, not only Portuguese national identity is strongly focused around the empire, as the notion that Portuguese colonialism was humanistic and nonracist is deeply ingrained in the imaginary of Portuguese today. Following Feldman-Bianco (2007), I have argued (Santos, forthcoming) that in order to understand the post-colonial, more than consider the ruptures brought by it, there is a need to consider the continuities. And although I shall not pursue this particular theme in this paper, the analysis here developed holds the understanding of the Portuguese uncritical stance towards the colonial rule as playing a major role in the affectionate relation towards Portugal dos Pequenitos.

16. This information consists mostly of a text at the entrance of each pavilion identifying it. As already stated, the interior of the Overseas Portugal/Portuguese-speaking Countries pavilions have very scant information on the objects displayed inside, and the one that exists is supplied only in Portuguese.

17. For further analysis of specific colonial undertones of the park see Santos (2014b, 204–207).

18. On this construction of Portuguese national identity, see Leal (2000).

19. In http://www.fbb.pt/pp/en/the-park/history/ [accessed June 2016].

20. For a good example of present day cultural diversity to be found within Lusophony see the Etnográfica journal issue edited by Klimt and Leal (2015).