The Carmo Convent in Lisbon is a very unusual church because it has no roof. This church was founded in 1389 by Nuno Álvares Pereira, a great Portuguese military leader who later became a Carmelite. It was the largest and most imposing Gothic church in Lisbon, rivaling the Cathedral and the Convent of São Francisco, located on the hill facing the Castelo de São Jorge.
Unfortunately, on November 1, 1755, a violent earthquake struck, followed by a fire, which destroyed much of the church and caused the vaults and roof to collapse. Reconstruction work began in 1756 but was definitively halted in 1834, with the suppression of religious orders in Portugal. In the 19th century, in the height of the Romantic taste for medieval ruins, the decision was made not to complete the reconstruction, leaving the naves open to the sky as a memorial to the earthquake. Today, the tall Gothic arches frame the sky and create a highly evocative setting, which has become one of the symbols of the memory of that catastrophe.
The interior retains its vaulted Gothic naves, with slender columns, Gothic portals (west and south), and the remains of side chapels. The most distinctive effect is precisely the direct relationship between the architectural structure and the sky: arches and buttresses become a sort of monumental “skeleton,” which many describe as romantic and melancholic.
The layout is a Latin cross, with a central nave and two aisles separated by tall pillars and pointed arches, which today emerge bare without their masonry roof. Proceeding from the portal toward the apse, you walk along a long paved corridor, flanked by strips of grass and the remains of chapels and masonry, with arches framing the sky. The absence of a roof accentuates the verticality of the columns and arches, creating an extremely mystical and theatrical perception of the space, which many describe as suspended between ruin and sacredness. The collection of Gothic ruins, funerary epigraphs, and archaeological pieces makes the interior a sort of “stone manual” of Lisbon’s history, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.
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