Main Glasshouse of the Tropical Botanical Garden (Estufa Principal, Jardim Botânico Tropical)

The garden was founded by a royal decree of 25 January 1906, under King Carlos I, as the Jardim Colonial. According to Portuguese Wikipedia, its first facilities were the former greenhouses of the Count of Farrobo, on the site of today's Lisbon Zoo. The move to Belém, behind the Jerónimos Monastery, is dated 1912 by the university museum and 1914 by the encyclopedia; the layout of the new garden was the work of the French landscape architect Henry Navel, who directed its installation.

The main glasshouse was built in 1914 of iron and glass, to Navel's designs according to the website devoted to its rehabilitation. In 1940 the Portuguese World Exhibition placed its colonial section in the garden, with temporary pavilions and a display of people from the colonies now described as a human zoo; the glasshouse was altered at that time and received important orchid collections. In 1944 the institution merged with the colonial agricultural museum and later became the Jardim e Museu do Ultramar. Wikipedia records two glasshouses added in 1947; the project website places the vestibule in the 1950s, and a stone sculpture with Chinese motifs was placed there in 1978.

Classified as a national monument in 2007 and attached to the University of Lisbon through the National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC), the garden closed in January 2019 for work on its paths, networks and buildings, and reopened on 25 January 2020. The restoration of the main glasshouse is the subject of a separate university project.

The main glasshouse is an iron-and-glass building typical of its period, which the rehabilitation project describes as Art Nouveau. It is not a single volume but a group: a central building of three parts, two propagation houses, a potting workshop and an entrance block. According to the project website, the three main parts corresponded to Africa, Asia and America, three continents with large tropical regions; Portuguese Wikipedia explains instead that the two houses added in 1947 made it possible to keep three different temperatures for plants from those continents.

The vestibule, which the project website places in the 1950s, reuses a nineteenth-century wrought-iron gate and is decorated with polychrome azulejos from the 1930s and a stone sculpture with Chinese motifs added in 1978. The sources consulted give neither the floor area nor the height of the glasshouse.

The university's project aims to restore the building's original design while adding equipment meant to keep its energy use to a minimum, with a net-zero energy target.

The glasshouse was designed for plants from warm regions, originally divided into three continental sections for Africa, Asia and America. According to the rehabilitation website, it was during the 1940 exhibition that it received important orchid collections.

Around it, the garden brings together plants from tropical and subtropical regions: about 600 species according to the university, more than 700 according to Portuguese Wikipedia. The university museum names among its notable plants the Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla), the Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), the dragon tree (Dracaena draco), cycads of the genera Encephalartos and Cycas (Cycas revoluta) and Ginkgo biloba. These trees and very ancient plant lineages make the outdoor garden a natural complement to the glasshouse, whose indoor collections depend on the progress of the restoration work.

The garden covers about 7 hectares in Belém, of which nearly 5 are open to the public, directly behind the Jerónimos Monastery. The main glasshouse stands within the grounds among several historic buildings: the seventeenth-century palace of the Counts of Calheta, the Casa do Fresco, the tea house in the former colonial restaurant and the raw-materials pavilion. The garden also holds marble statues by Bernardino Ludovici and Giuseppe Mazzuoli.

An hour is enough for a first walk. As the interior of the glasshouse may remain closed during the works, it is wise to check access with the museum before coming. A visit combines easily with the Jerónimos Monastery and the other museums of Belém.