Construction & Architecture

Portuguese Architecture

 

 

The ancestral houses were built out of sand. The clayey sand used to build these houses was first mixed with water and calcium carbonate, (calcium carbonate would help to make the mixture stronger) and was kept stagnantfor for a few days (usually a week). In the meantime, a foundation of laterite stones was made ready for the construction.

The houses were built in layers, each layer called a ‘TOR’. When a layer of the wall was built, it took about a week for the mixture to solidify, and only then was the new layer placed over it. The roofing was done using the beam of a coconut tree.

The Portuguese furniture is quite unique in many ways. The curves and genius design were all hand made as there was no special machines available then. The design is quite appealing to the human mind and carpenters back then were quite skillful and patient while working. Every piece of wood would eventually turn out to be a masterpiece. Crafting, Sculpting and designing the item would take several days before a well finished product was ready for sale.

The Portuguese had a very creative eye when it came to sculpting and designing. These designs are difficult to be replicated and telling the difference between an original Portuguese sculpted piece of art, and a phony is not very hard since the differences are quite evident. The unique craftsmanship has made these masterpieces so invaluable that a single piece can be sold for lakhs of rupees and an ancient Portuguese house today is worth nothing short of a crore.

The old Portuguese chair is a unique masterpiece of the furniture of the Portuguese Regime. The rocking chair also known as ‘Volter’ is a  modification of the normal chair that allowed it’s user to sit back, relax and rock himself to and fro with simple forward and backward motions of the human body. It was a very popular piece of great art then and now as well .

The wood used was usually teak back then, as it was considered to be one of the most superior quality of wood and most durable wood types,and was abundantly available in the Nagar Haveli area of Daman. The black wood called ‘Sisso’ was appreciated for the use of all kinds of framework, flooring and paneling, as well as  beams to support roofs.

The most important task in making the furniture was the joints used which consisted of 3 important joints used in every piece of art :
1: Basic Butt Joint.
2: Mitered Butt Join
3:Overlap Joint     etc.

All these joints when put together, transformed a dull and simple block of furniture into a glamorous masterpiece.

Another integral part of  the Portuguese architecture were the artistic windows and doors made of  sections of wood along with shells. These doors were not used for the main entrances or the back doors due to their frail and weak nature as they were not all that strong as regular doors, but for the rooms in the house.

The shells are not quite strong, as the doors consist of thin sheets of multiple shells that were stacked against each other arranged in an upward manner one above or below the other, sandwiched between two vertical parallel segments of durable wood.

These are some of the great designs and furniture of the Portuguese era present in only a handful of exotic Portuguese houses today in Goa. Since it is so hard to find this type of brilliant craftsmanship, the furniture is sold at a premium rate affordable to few.