In 1920, the City Commission of the island of Brava in Cape Verde, presented to the General Governor of the archipelago a plan that aimed to reverse the isolation of the island. The Commission wanted to add more dynamism to the economy by adding to agriculture a new dimension: the health tourism and leisure. On the basis of the plan was the idea that the climate of Brava was special, and that Europeans would seek the island for rest, treatments and cures through the medicinal waters. To properly receive the tourists, the plan provided for a radical transformation of the town, for which it proposed a new image, of more modern features, whose inspiration came from the French boulevards. The intention of this paper is to present the process of metamorphosis of Vila Nova Sintra and to analyse the discussion generated on the island about the proposed urban model. This is a unique case within the framework of the Portuguese colonies. Not just because it comes at an early timeline, in a way, just after the first world war, but, above all, because the plan emerges from an internal movement, involving the population itself and away from colonial policies. In addition, the plan designs for the tropics an idealisation of the climate and of European cosmopolitanism that must be taken into account.

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Cape Verde,Brava Island,Urbanism,Boulevard,Nova Sintra