SYMBOLS Stories of cultural life.

José Joaquim Pereira Pinheiros chapel

In division 3, the chapel of the businessman José Joaquim Pereira Pinheiro, executed in Lisbon in the accredited workshop of Germano José de Sales, deserves a special mention.

The chapel is inspired by a smaller one, which had been made for the Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris. However, only the stones came from Lisbon. The ironwork was carried out in Porto: both the gate and the surrounding railing, with its granite pillars.
The chapel would have been built in 1868, but in December 1866 José Joaquim Pereira Pinheiro intended to build it, at which time he complained to the Lapa Brotherhood that, for the desired chapel, there was "no more space in the cemetery's inferior area and in the upstairs area, it would harm the approved plan".

This chapel was one of the causes of the last enlargement made on the Lapa Cemetery.


The oral tradition of the family suggests that José Joaquim Pereira Pinheiro wanted a tomb in the cemetery area where the poorest were buried. In fact, it is not a very monumental chapel in height. However, the surrounding railing and the fact that it is at the top of division 3, gives it a certain highlight.
Even more prominent was the fact that the sections to the front were initially planned only for temporary burials, so no other monument has overshadowed it, until today.

Keywords:
tomb
Cemetery
romanticism
Porto