The symmetries and asymmetries in Ponta Delgada
“It’s called Ponta Delgada because it’s situated in the thinnest edge [ponta in Portuguese] of the island, and look, you can see that peak over there, it’s the highest place in the island, with over a thousand and one hundred meters of altitude, the Pico da Vara [Stick’s Edge]. From up there, you can see everything around you, in case it’s clean.”.
This was the information that I retained from the cheerful conversation with the taxi driver that took me from the airport to the city center of Ponta Delgada on my first visit to the island of S. Miguel, the biggest island in the Azorean archipelago. “This city of Ponta Delgada is named this way because it’s located alongside the edge of a biscuit stone, delgada [thin] and not thick as the other [stones] within the island, almost as shallow as the sea, which afterwards, due to building itself nearby a small church of Santa Clara, came to be known as Ponta de Santa Clara [Santa Clara’s Edge]…”, explains Gaspar Frutuoso (1522-1591), historian, Azorean priest and chronicler of S. Miguel’s settlement , quoted at Ponta Delgada’s Wikipedia page.
And this is how the gates of this city were opened up to me. With the descriptions of profiles and landforms. I don’t know if it was because of this introduction, but I do know that in the following day, I decided to throw myself towards Pico da Vara, with all my strength and power, in face of such a herculean challenge. Therefore, I climbed to that edge of the world: already sticking my tongue out, I felt each of the final steps, in order to reach its peak in the midst of a thick fog and scream to the winds, that were strong, cold and wet, “I was here”. I could only understand the vastness of such a space afterwards, when I was already home, by watching a video of this edge of the world…
But this and other adventures throughout the island tracks didn’t take away any space or time for wandering around Ponta Delgada’s historic urban center, at dawn or dusk. To wander the streets without destination or purpose, within a somewhat planned closed circuit, allowed for some of the realities that compose the city to gain strength, despite the brevity of my stay, such as:
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- The urban network consists of narrow streets and with an extension that appeared to me as, in many cases, unusual, with a tendency to continue straight on to infinity. Ponta Delgada, a city of flat lines, “the most concise form of the infinity of movement possibilities”, as described by Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian artist and Bauhaus professor, in his book Point, Line, and Plane (1922/1996, p. 61).
- The tiny tours, paved with white (limestone) and black (basalt) stones, the most convenient material available, are the basis in which Ponta Delgada was built (Enciclopédia Açoreana / Azorean Encyclopedia). This is a type of pavement that we can find replicated in squares, gardens and in the floor of many public spaces alongside the city, within a very diverse range of shapes and patterns, with such a unique artsy and aesthetic quality that it came to be known as the Calçada Portuguesa [Portuguese Pavement]. For what we could gather, once we were back home, if you want to learn geometry, then you just need to be mindful to the pavement in which we walked and look for patterns and symmetries, as said by Ricardo Teixeira, a Mathematics professor from the Universidade dos Açores [University of Azores]. The professor used this reality as a pretext to encourage students to participate in an initiative that he called Math & Walk, aimed at identifying various types of symmetries, turning simple walks along the pavement into geometry lessons. This initiative culminated, as we understand, in the publication of various [tour] guides in 2013 about the pavements found throughout the archipelago.[1]
Figure 1. Calçada portuguesa [Portuguese pavement]. Source: the author (2024)
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- The cast iron works, in the balconies, gates and windows, and the diversity of the friezes, a reality that was also explored by Ricardino Teixeira, with Susana Goulart Costa and Vera Moniz, which resulted in the book Grupos de Simetria: Identificação de Padrões no Património Cultural dos Açores [Groups of Symmetry: Identification of Patterns in the Azorean Cultural Heritage] (2015).
Figure 2: Cast iron works. Source: the author (2024)
- As we were studying the everyday life of public markets, it was unavoidable to visit the municipal market building, located at the Rua do Mercado [Market’s Street], in the parish of São Pedro, in the historic city center of Ponta Delgada. An example of the so-called iron architecture, a commercial architecture from the late nineteenth century (similar to the Ferreira Borges market, in Porto [1885] or the Braga Municipal Market, inaugurated in 1915), has been situated in the historic center since 1848, and fully operational since 1852. Previously called the Mercado do Pelourinho [Pelourinho’s Market], the Mercado da Graça [Grace’s Market] has surprised me by the desolate atmosphere that can be felt. A spacious but desert ship. There are signs of life only at the corners of the central plaza, alongside the halls and in the back of the space. The fish market area, with more benches than customers; the cafeteria, indeed, has more people; the meat market, with one or two customers. When I arrived home, I confirmed my suspicion. It was another example of a public market undergoing a redevelopment project. According to the Açoriano Oriental [Eastern Azorean], in a news article published in February 7, 2024, the redevelopment project for the rooftop of Mercado da Graça, in the city of Ponta Delgada, was contracted and initiated in September 2021, with its conclusion expected for August 2022, however, the project was suspended and set to resume in June 2024, around the time I visited the space: “Obras de Santa Engrácia também as há em S. Miguel…” [There are also Santa Engrácia’s works in S. Miguel]
Figure 3: Mercado da Graça [Graça’s Market]. Source: the author (2024)
Figure 4: Interior of Mercado da Graça [Graça’s Market Interior]. Source: the author (2024)
And speaking about saints, in the afternoon that we arrived to Ponta Delgada it occurred the Solenidade do Corpo e Sangue de Cristo [Solemnity of the body and blood of Christ] at the Igreja Matriz de São Sebastião [Main Church of São Sebastião], celebrating the Eucharist, following on with the eucharistic procession (Correio dos Açores, 30 de maio de 2024). Since we were sleeping very close to this church, which is located in the oldest urban site in the city, it was at this urban scenery that I came in contact, albeit in a clearly superficial way, with fragments of the daily movements from the people that shape the urban rhythm (Lindón, 2017) of Ponta Delgada, specially at the dawn of the day. Everyday practices that take place in particular places. At the benches surrounding the main church, a point of reference for homeless people or in “a street situation”, as this population is often designated in Brazil. The same faces, the same clothes, impeccably dressed, day after day, which affect and are affected by each other, by their simple presence, in their materiality. The corporealities put on stage give a particular tone to that place, in certain moments, even though not everybody meet or talk to one another, their bodies communicate something similar. “It opens only by 8:30”, is repeated, on a daily basis, by the person that is seated at Pingo Doce’s entrance floor in the city’s margin . Sometimes in Portuguese, sometimes in English, an entanglement of spaces of life, in another fleeting urban scenery that marked our stay. It’s an unavoidable reality of the city’s daily life and its texture, that has come to worsen within the archipelago, especially in S. Miguel, the most populous island in the archipelago. A situation attested by studies carried out at the Universidade dos Açores, from which we highlight those developed by sociologist Fernando Diogo (2019), who has worked on the issue of poverty and social exclusion since 1991, as well as the report À margem – trajetórias de vida de rua [At the margins – trajectories of a street life] that surveys and characterizes the sociodemographic characteristics from the homeless population in the Região Autónoma dos Açores [Azores Autonomous Region], elaborated by the researchers Paulo Vitorino Fontes, Hélder Rego Fernandes and Lídia Canha Fernandes.
Asymmetries that take me to other types of flows that mark the city’s daily life, namely, the migrant and touristic [flows]. This is how we finished our trip, at A Tasca’s restaurant table, one of the busiest restaurants in the city center, situated next to two couples who were both on vacation. A young Austrian couple and an older couple, from which both were retired and born at Angra de Heroísmo, with an entire life made in the “lost Californias of abundance”, an expression taken from the poem A Ilha [The Island] from Pedro da Silveira, a poet born at Ilha das Flores [Flowers Island], where Europe and America were closest to each other.
This year, the Azorean couple came joined by their sons and grandchildren, who were also touristing throughout the island of S. Miguel. The terceirense man (citizen from the Ilha Terceira [Third Island]) left his island while 16 years old, alongside his 12 family members, parents and siblings. He comes back every year for the Festa do Corpo de Deus [Party for the Body of God] in Angra do Heroísmo, which, according to him, continues to motivate the annual return of many terceirenses to the Azores. He told us that he revisits places by memory, “killing” the saudade [longing] from the past, from when he lived in the island, from infancy and youthfulness, by watching videos in Youtube, made of people and spaces from his home island. This is how the terceirense, our fleeting dinner table companion, revisits the places of memory that he knows and the intertwined experiences of things and people. I imagined how much this man would have to tell about his island, which to me echoed the saudade [longing] of the “corsário das ilhas” [corsair of the islands], as described:
“I recognize the places, the relations of stones, – nothing else! (…) In here, the Savior with his white beard of heavenly guardian is no longer present; you can’t hear the croquet shots anymore nor António dos Santos, quixotically, rubbing his hand: – Nice shot! But that’s the soul of the garden… The secret of life is here! There was the geishas’ small arbor and what changed the most, since mr. Vilar and Mr. Picanço used to sit there… Mr. Vilar, that, coughing, proclaimed every 15 minutes against the lack of action within the island: – At the Continent! Those are the lands! (Nemésio, 1983, p. 111)
An island transfigured by saudade [longing], starting point, memory and dream. As Natália Correia says in its “Retrato talvez saudoso da menina insular” [Maybe a longing portrait by the insular girl]:
Tinha o tamanho da praia / It had the size of the beach
o corpo que era de areia. / the body that was of sand.
E mais que corpo era indício / And more than a body it was an indication
do mar que o continuava. / of the sea with no end.
Destino de água salgado / A destiny of salty waters
principiado na veia. / originated in the vein.
E quando as mãos se estenderam / And when its hands reached out
a todo o seu comprimento / for all its length
e quando os olhos desceram / and when its eyes gazed upon
a toda a sua fundura / all its deepness
teve o sinal que anuncia / it had the sign that preludes
o sonho da criatura. / the dreams of the creature.
Largou o sonho no barco / It left the dream at the boat
que dos seus dedos partiam / from which its fingers slipped
que dos seus dedos paisagens / from which its fingers landscapes
países antecediam. / and countries came before it.
E quando o corpo se ergueu / And when the body has risen
voltado para o desengano / facing towards disillusion
só ficou tranquilidade / only tranquility has remained
na linha daquele além / in the line of that beyond
guardada na claridade / kept within the clarity
do coração que a retém / of the heart that [it] contains.
(Correia, 1993, p. 57)
Braga, 30th of August of 2024
Notes
[1] The symmetry itineraries, as well as other support texts and many news articles related to this subject, are available on the following page, where many information related to symmetries in craftsmanship, tiles and balconies: https://sites.uac.pt/rteixeira/divulgacao/. Ricardo Teixeira has also published, in 2015, alongside Susana Costa and Vera Moniz, a book in which he deepens his symmetries studies as part of the archipelago’s cultural heritage.
References
Açoriano Oriental. (7 de fev., 2024). Obra para concluir requalificação de mercado em Ponta Delgada deve arrancar em junho. https://www.acorianooriental.pt/noticia/obra-para-concluir-requalificacao-de-mercado-em-ponta-delgada-deve-arrancar-em-junho-357649
Carreiro, P. (2013, 30 de janeiro). Ilha, Pedro da Silveira. https://folhadepoesia.blogspot.com/2013/01/ilha-pedro-da-silveira.html
Correia, N. (1993). O sol nas noites e o luar nos dias. Círculo de Leitores.
Correio dos Açores (2024, 30 de maio). Ouvidoria de Ponta Delgada organiza celebração conjunta de todas as paróquias na Solenidade do Corpo de Deus. https://correiodosacores.pt/?s=Ouvidoria+de+Ponta+Delgada+organiza+celebração+conjunta+de+todas+as+paróquias+na+Solenidade+do+Corpo+de+Deus&id=309&post_type=post
Diogo, F. (2021) (Coord.). A pobreza em Portugal. Trajetos e quotidianos. Fundação Manuel dos Santos.
Diogo, F. (2019). Algumas peculiaridades da pobreza nos Açores, Sociologia Online, 19, 81-101.
Kandinsky, W. (1926/1996). Ponto, linha, plano. Contribuição para a análise dos elementos picturais. Ed. 70.
Lindón, A. (2017). La ciudad movimento: cotidianidades,afectividades corporizadas y redes topológicas. Immediaciones de la Comunicación, 12(1), 107-126
Lusa online. (21 de set., 2013). Roteiros explicam matemática nas calçadas dos Açores. Açoriano oriental. https://www.acorianooriental.pt/noticia/roteiros-explicam-matematica-nas-calcadas-dos-acores
Fontes, P. V., Fernandes, H. R. & Fernandes, L. C. (2022). Estudos à margem: Relatório de caraterização sociodemográfica. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/6434
Mercado da Graça (s.d.). https://www.cm-pontadelgada.pt/pages/1240
Nemésio, V. (1956/1983). Corsário das ilhas. Bertrand.
Ponta Delgada (Concelho) (s.d.). In Enciclopédia Açoriana. http://www.culturacores.azores.gov.pt/ea/pesquisa/Default.aspx?id=9457
Ponta Delgada. (s.d.). In Wikipedia. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponta_Delgada
Teixeira, R.; Costa, S. & Moniz, V. (2015). Grupos de simetria: identificação de padrões no património cultural dos Açores. Associação Ludus/Apenas Livros https://repositorio.uac.pt/handle/10400.3/4217
Teixeira, R. (s.d.). https://sites.uac.pt/rteixeira/divulgacao/
LOCALIZAÇÃO
LOCAL: Açores
LATITUDE: 37.7394207
LONGITUDE: -25.6686725