Soft Fascism
The buildings that came out of Portugal’s New State were described as an ‘architectural lie’.
The Portuguese Estado Novo (New State) is not remembered as a particularly aggressive dictatorship. This is largely due to propaganda. Founded by António de Oliveira Salazar in 1933, the regime remained in power for 41 years, enough to outlive every other far-right regime in Europe. Throughout that period it consistently marketed itself as a different form of authoritarianism – an accessible, even affable, one.
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