Praça do Comércio

This guide to Praça do Comércio in Lisbon opens on the first of February 1908, as King Carlos and his family cross the square in an open carriage, on ground rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake reduced the royal palace once here to ruins. It follows the crowd waiting along the route, including a schoolteacher named Manuel Buíça, and what the grand rebuilt square was designed to project: permanence and power. Watch the U-shaped colonnade as you listen.