Resume: The Lisbon Archaeological Center (CAL), in the context of urban rehabilitation in the Baixa Pombalina district, is developing a set of integrated actions in the Study and Valuation Project of the Roman Cryptoporticus of Lisbon (CRLx).
This project reveals the care with which the City Council of Lisbon has treated since the 19th century this reference monument of the city.
Among other objectives, it is intended the public enjoyment of the monument through the creation of a new access that replaces the current trapdoor, located in the center of the Rua da Conceição street, which does not offer visitors the best security conditions and keeps the public with reduced mobility out of the monument.
In this context, an archaeological intervention was planned in a confining space to one of the highest galleries in Roman construction, enabling the structuring of this new, safer and more inclusive entrance, which will allow the permanent integration of the monument into the municipality patrimonial and tourist offer.
The archaeological intervention in progress, besides having allowed to open the "Gallery of the Springs", has revealed important new information regarding the characterization of the monument (its port component is already recognized in the old riverside front of the Roman city), its construction phase, its limits and its integration into the urban fabric.
In this context the formaurbis LAB has contributed with the CAL in the interpretation and study of the monument, pointing in a still early way its original function as well as its probable architectonic composition. On the other hand, the partnership with CAL has also allowed the study of the Roman urbanism, starting with the marking of all known archeological traces that together with the reading of pre-Pombaline medieval urbanism allowed the approximate reconstruction of the roman city.
