Declaration of interests: I was born in a lighthouse. Just over 61 years ago. Cabo da Roca. The western most point of the European continent. There, where I was born, I also got married. I really like headlights. Much.
You understand. This comes with regard to all the controversy surrounding the Guia lighthouse, in Macau (in Cascais, Portugal, there is one with the same name planted on the edge of a cliff). But it is not the controversy over the action (or inaction) of the powers surrounding the visual integrity of the Guia lighthouse that brings me here. As well as the fair criticisms of the buildings that are hiding the masonry structure that stands on the hill with the same name.
Guia, with a beautiful and elegant silhouette, is a strange lighthouse. A lighthouse that is perhaps too urban for the image I keep of all the lighthouses I have seen and those I hope to see. It is a lighthouse that lacks the sea. The sea that surely in the past kept him company much closer.
Guia, with a beautiful and elegant silhouette, is a strange lighthouse
But if the lack of sea matters, what really saddens me is the loss of light. That element that is the essence of the headlights. Illuminate. Guide. This clarity dotted in the darkness and which warns of the dangers that the night hides.
Covering Guia, more than the building, is mainly hiding the light. Of the navigators. Those who arrive, those who leave and those who are. The light (the lights) has helped us to come out of the darkness. Hiding it is also a return, however small, to the past. Do not hide the light. From Guia and what guides us!
*Plataforma Executive Editor
