From the journal
The former City Hall was built in 1784 and rebuilt in 1874; its second-floor library opened in 1929 with rare books on Portugal’s history overseas.
The building now occupied by the Municipal Affairs Bureau began as the City Hall in 1784. Its present scale dates from a rebuilding in 1874. The symmetrical façade and broad entrance reflect a southern European architectural style.
The building faces Senado Square, whose name recalls the former municipal council. The square and its former City Hall preserve two parts of Macao’s civic history at adjoining addresses.
The second floor opened as the Leal Senado Library in 1929. Its design drew on the library at Mafra Convent in Portugal, and the classical furnishings give the rooms a formal atmosphere. The collection specializes in foreign-language books from the seventeenth century through the 1950s, especially records of Portugal’s history in Africa and the Far East.
The building unfolds through three depths. The entrance hall and public rooms occupy the front; administrative offices sit behind them; a small garden completes the rear. Blue-and-white Portuguese tiles line the lower walls of the front interior, while archways and short flights of steps connect the different parts of the building.
Senado Square’s fountain and wave-pattern pavement belong to a later phase of the public space, while the City Hall building preserves an older municipal address and a twentieth-century library. These details make the surrounding block a compact record of civic change.
Its story moves from municipal government to heritage institution and reading room, with each use adding a different reason for people to enter. The square outside and the collection upstairs together show how public space and public memory can inhabit the same address.
