Lição de coisas: uma história do Lar Branco Rodrigues

The Branco Rodrigues Institute for the Blind (Instituto de Cegos Branco Rodrigues), a pedagogical project born at the beginning of the 20th century, now the Branco Rodrigues Home, a residential structure to support the visually impaired student population, is a centuries-old initiative. Lição de Coisas (Lesson of Things) is a journey through more than 100 years of history. Since 1900, year when José Cândido Branco Rodrigues founded in Lisbon a school for blind students, an avant-garde proposal at the time. Passing through 1913, when the establishment was installed in São João do Estoril, conquering the status of a model teaching space. Without forgetting the mandatory stopover in 1926, year of the death of the mentor, founder and director of the Branco Rodrigues Institute for the Blind. By his express wish, the educational establishment then became administered by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Lisbon, a guardianship that remains to this day. This tour makes it possible to discover the conversion of the educational establishment into a residential structure to support the visually impaired student population, which took place at the end of the 1970s, an adaptation that was necessary in the light of the integrated teaching practices that have become the rule since then. It also makes it possible to get to know the current daily routines of the Branco Rodrigues Home, built on the search to offer more and better to its users. Lição de Coisas unveils a chronicle of pioneerism, of achievements and failures, of adaptations and mismatches, of the efforts of all those who, heirs of the legacy of Branco Rodrigues, persist in a path that continues to be walked today, on behalf of the visually impaired population, on behalf of the full inclusion of all, to build a better society.

Author: Ana Gomes
Revision: J. Leitão Batista

Design and Pagination: Catarina França
Photography: Lisbon Municipal Archive/Photographic, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation/Art Library, Lisbon Municipal Newspaper Library, Lisbon Misericórdia/ Audiovisual and Multimedia Center

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