Lesson of Things: A Story of the White Home Rodrigues

The Institute of the Blind Branco Rodrigues, a pedagogical project born in the early 20th century, now known as Lar Branco Rodrigues, a residential support structure for students with visual impairments, is a secular initiative. Lição de Coisas is a journey through these more than 100 years of history. Since 1900, the year when José Cândido Branco Rodrigues founded a school for blind students in Lisbon, a groundbreaking proposal at the time. Moving to 1913, the year when the establishment moved to São João do Estoril, gaining the status of a model teaching space. Not forgetting the mandatory stop in 1926, the year of the death of the mentor, founder, and director of the Institute of the Blind Branco Rodrigues. By his express wish, the educational institution was then administered by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, a management that continues to this day. This journey allows for the discovery of the conversion of the educational institution into a residential support structure for students with visual impairments, which occurred in the late 1970s, an adaptation that was necessary in light of the integrated teaching practices that became the norm since then. It also enables an understanding of the current daily routines of Lar Branco Rodrigues, built on the pursuit of offering more and better to its users.
Lição de coisas unveils a chronicle of pioneering, of achievements and failures, of adaptations and mismatches, of the efforts of all those who, heirs to the legacy of Branco Rodrigues, persist on a path that continues to be traveled today, in favor of the visually impaired population, in the name of the full inclusion of all, for the construction of a better society.

Author: Ana Gomes
Review: J. Leitão Batista

Design and Layout: Catarina França
Photography: Municipal Archive of Lisbon/Photographic, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation/Art Library, Municipal Hemeroteca of Lisbon, Misericórdia de Lisboa/Audiovisual and Multimedia Unit

Year of publication: June, 2021
Publisher: Editorial Center | Culture Directorate SCML
ISBN: 9789899021372