In mid-twentieth-century Portugal, individuals categorized as beggars, vagrants and homeless were generally under the remit of the Home Affairs Ministry, and specifically within the purview of the police. This was exerted in each administrative circumscription (“distrito”) of the country through the so-called “governo civil”, a tightly controlled regional branch of central (dictatorial) government. It was this body’s responsibility to draft a multi-year Social Assistance Plan for the entire “distrito”. Among the provisions of the plan, one key structure was the “Albergue Distrital”, a multipurpose shelter to be run by the regional government through the police. The shelter would provide temporary accommodation for all the homeless beggars in the “distrito”, other than permanent hospice for the invalid elderly, residence and education for orphaned boys and a soup kitchen (“Paupers’ Soup”). Through a close-to-the-grain analysis of regional and local archival records that follows the planning, commissioning, and construction process of the “Albergue” designed and erected in Faro (Algarve) between 1949 and 1959, our paper will discuss how this key structure was in effect an attempt to give architectural form to an outdated concept of how the State could address the social illnesses of an entire region. Behind a much disputed façade, where disparate stylistic traditions clashed to dignify a utilitarian building well beyond economic rationality, the “Albergue” in Faro was a puzzling toolbox designed to clear the streets of the undesired – young and old, sick and healthy – and hide them away where they could be controlled and possibly regenerated, under the auspices of Social Assistance tenets that, at a pivotal moment, still matched more conservative sectors of the Estado Novo regime. We posit that the piece’s microhistory, from the philosophy behind the regional plan to its eventful financing and materialization developments, offers valuable insight into mid-century social control devices in Portugal and beyond.

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