Great Glasshouse, Coimbra Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra grew out of the Pombaline reforms of the university in the 1770s. Nearly a century later, the institution acquired a large glasshouse for tropical plants. The design was submitted in 1854 by the engineer Pezerat, and the building was completed in 1865. It is one of the earliest examples of iron-and-glass architecture in Portugal, inspired by the glasshouses at Kew.

Over time the glasshouse lost its transparency, its panes whitewashed to cut the sun, and it underwent no major restoration until 2013. That year a rehabilitation led by the architect João Mendes Ribeiro began, costing more than two million euros and funded through the EU-backed QREN/Mais Centro programme. The works uncovered the remains of an even older greenhouse. The project won the National Urban Rehabilitation Prize in 2017 in the category of best intervention with social impact, and the glasshouse was inaugurated on 20 March 2018 in the presence of the university's rector.

The glasshouse follows a long rectangular plan in three connected sections, with a taller central wing that has an upper gallery. The restoration kept the original iron frame. The whitewash was stripped away and replaced with transparent laminated glass, developed with the glassmaker Covina to cope with temperature swings, together with interior shading screens and electric shutters driven by temperature, humidity and wind sensors; the whole system can be monitored remotely.

In the central wing the old planting beds gave way to a large pool lined with black-painted steel plates, designed for the giant water lily Victoria amazonica. Heating comes from a biomass boiler fed with pellets and green waste from the garden, and rainwater is harvested. The project also added a small teaching building of wood and stone with a planted roof, two small houses for cacti and succulents, a control room and toilets.

The glasshouse holds some two hundred species in three spaces with distinct climates. The first room, cleared of its beds, serves as a flexible space for temporary displays and concerts. The central room, around the Victoria amazonica pool, holds epiphytic orchids and aquatic plants. The third recreates a humid tropical forest and shows plants of use to people, including coffee, cacao, mango, ginger, pepper and quinine, along with carnivorous plants and ferns. Many of the tropical plants come from São Tomé and Príncipe.

The glasshouse stands in the Botanical Garden, a terraced site of about thirteen hectares, divided between a classical garden and woodland and bordered by the sixteenth-century São Sebastião aqueduct. The interior is seen on guided tours of about an hour, which require advance registration because numbers are limited; the garden itself is free to enter. A visit pairs well with a walk through the garden's terraces and woodland the garden being part of the university site inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2013.