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Both buildings are in hilltops facing the Praya grande as it was a tradition in Macau for Public buildings or wealthy merchants.

The Consul Residence (top) was the former Belavista, which means “beautiful view”, was part of the chain of Mandarin hotel group. Was built in 1870’s for a Macanese family.

In 1890, a British navy officer bough the building as a retreat Inn for Hong Kong Expatriates that come to Macau as a place for rest.

From 1917 to 1923 was used as Liceu, a Macanese high Scholl. Was one of the several buildings used as a refugee center during WWII.

Three years after the war is open as a hotel, until 1999 when become the residence for the Portuguese consul in Macau.

The present Portuguese Consulate (below) was the former St. Raphael Hospital, founded in 1568 by the bishop Don Melchior Carneiro. Later expanded and new wings were added.

In the 1970’s St Raphael could not compete with the prices and quality services offered by Government Hospital Conde St. January in Guia Hill.

Orient Foundation bough the building in 1988 and rented to the Macau Monetary authority.

Following the handover of Macau Administration in 1999, the building is used as the Portuguese Consulate, busy with requirements and services for the more than 100.000 Portuguese passports holders based in Macau.

A large car park is under the front steeply inclined garden.

A fake columns and verandas façade crowned by a rudimentary pediment cover the simplicity this neoclassic building, that had change color several times, red, green, now yellow.

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Mater of God Church
Bell Tower
Procuratoria of Japan
Rooms and workshops
Japanese Seminary

The ruins of St. Paul College are the paradigmatic monument of the first encounter between China and the West, focused in mixenization of cultures and sciences.

In 1572 arrived the first Jesuits to settle in Macau. They start a school, which was upgraded in 1594 to an University College, becoming the first western university in South East Asia, providing teaching Latin, Greek, local languages, music, painting, humanities rhetoric philosophy and theology.

St. Paul college walls had contemplated great scholars like Matteus Ricci and Ruggieri.

Two primitive wooden churches annexed to the College were lost in fires.

In 1602, a new church was erected with a tilled roof, stone in the facade and wooden columns in the central nave.

The sidewalls were made of Chunambo or Taipa (a compacted cemetitious amalgam of muddy earth mixed with straw and lime from oyster shells, sometimes reinforced with wood). The main architect of this last church was the Genovese Carlo Spinola.

Chinese and Japanese craftsman worked together in the construction and decoration as is clear apparent in the church facade. The Jesuits also built a Forte, connected with the college by exterior staircases and internally by tunnels.

In 1762 the Jesuits were expelled and the monastery was used by the main protagonists of the second encounter, the military. In 1835 a fire in the kitchen devastated the entire compound.

In 1995 Archaeological excavations were performed, unveiling some of the old structures.

The facade of the Church of Mater Dei

Triumphant Church, Heaven
Pediment: Gift of Grace,

The Holy Spirit

4th Row; Christ Saviour of the World

3th Row; Assumption of Mary, the new Eva, Theotocus and Mediatrix

Militant Church, Earth
2th Row; Glory of Jesuit’s Saints

1th Row; This building, is a gate to the house, the citadel of God

The facade of the Church of Mater Dei (Mother of God) is a simplified and short cathechism about the role of Christ church in the salvation of men.

Jesus Christ is the savior of Mankind (JHS). He founded One Church Universal (Catholic) as the People of God, the Kingdom of heaven on Earth, struggling with the powers of evil.

He gave to Peter the keys of Heaven and the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church where Peter in this Earth is the visible rock.

The “japanese” St. Michael

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Lilau Square was in the frontier ridge between the western city and the Chinese quarter that sprawled from here trough the beach formed by the Inner Harbor.

Example of this interaction in the ridge between the two cultures is the house of the Mandarin (please see pag. 9 of this City Guide). Houses of this residential area had kept the old charm of the traditional Portuguese houses.

Different colors help to break the monotony and similarity of the volumes and shapes of the houses.

There are no balconies or arches, which are “imports” from other regions of the Portuguese architecture in Asia, particularly from India.

Together with the popular architecture is apparent some Art Deco buildings and the small red palace, like the one near the fountain.

Big trees contribute whit their shadow to the peace and tranquility of this place. Dark granite cobblestones paved the road, a traditional urban pattern of Macau that is disappearing.

A kiosk was had recently given support to this small “Lilau village” inside the big metropolis of Macau, which becomes the most dense city in the world?

Presently is apparent that this small quiet urban place is sleeping a long siesta dreaming of her forgotten past with the family life and children running near the drying clothes.

We still can listen the water falling from the Lilau fountain, murmuring stories and legends of ancient times. Nostalgia is the only thing that had definitively settled in this place.

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The old Taipa Fortress was built in 1847 by the Lieutenant Silva Loureiro in the western tip of Taipa Island for protection against pirate raids over merchant ship that prey for booty over the prosperous sea trade in the Pearl River.

The columns are part of the fake façade that was added afterwards, built probably, when the main building become a summer resident for the Macau governor.

To small rooms in the main building served as kitchen and other as a jail. On a higher ground was located storehouses and a Arsenal.

The style is very simple and typical practice in Macau; masonry walls and roof tiles with some decorations in stucco. The glass windows have external timber shutters (French window).

The foundation of the exterior wall as well the foundations and basement of each building is granite. This was not only because of military reasons but also as protections against de endemic termites’ attacks.

The platforms are paved in cobblestones. In the beach was built a pier for small boats commuting between Macau and islands. Seaplanes slide calmly in the fortress waterfront.

An original 1855 canon, the only remaining of the seven original pieces, still visible in the entrance platform.

In 1999 the building was offered to from the police force (that have a new station) to the Chinese Boys Scouts Association.

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The chapel of Our Lady of Guia was built in 1622 in the highest point of the Macau peninsula. The need of this fortress was apparent after the first Dutch attack to the city. The Feast of the patron of this chapel is the 5^th of August.

This high point give the alarm, ringing the bells as soon as a ship was found by the soldiers watching the horizon of the Pearl river. The small chapel is divided in two areas; the altar and the `populum” nave. The original frescos on walls and roof were recovered.

Together with Mont Fort, Guia Hill could have supplied crossfire over any enemy ship approaching the wall of the city through the Exterior Harbor or Praya Grande.

The primitive walls with four corner turrets had enclosed a 800 sq. meter area, housing the company of soldiers barracks, commander facilities, water, ammunition depot and a small hermitage.

British soldiers occupied this fortress during the Napoleonic wars, under the pretext to better protect the city against foreign invasions.

Annex to the chapel, in 1865 was built a lighthouse. This was the first of its kind in China Coast.

Since them by petroleum or by electricity her lamps provided a clear guidance to any ship harboring to Macau, justifying the “Guia” to guide, of her name.

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Macau fortresses had suffered a constant updating required by the evolution of the artillery firepower. After the trenches system failure in W.W.I., the Maginot and Siegfried line were considered inexpugnable compounds.

In Guia Hill, formerly a military restrict area site, in 1930’s a Maginot type of low profile surface shape, well camouflaged system defense was built. Bunker’s, canons machineguns niches, ammunition depots, underground headquarter, shells elevators, etc.

In Taipa Island a similar system had started to build in order to create crossfire platforms. This static defensive system had a movable arm formed by ships and hydroplanes.

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