Silves cork museum stalemate

Paul 15 September 2014

corkmuseum A Public Petition has been launched in an attempt to keep the Fábrica do Inglês and its Cork Museum in Silves.

The petition aims to preserve the the Fábrica do Inglês and museum and demands that the President of the Assembly and the Portuguese Association of Industrial Archaeology does something about it.

The petition points out that the current owner does not guarantee the museum collection will stay in its Silves home and that the museum came about from the desire to preserve a local heritage that was fast disappearing.

The petition notes that when the museum was set up, some prominent local families gave money to ensure the museum was opened and maintained for the benefit of future generations in memory of their ancestors.

One aim is to get the museum contents declared as public patrimony, a process currently being progressed by the Portuguese Association of Industrial Archaeology, and thus prevent the museum contents from being broken up or sold off.

The remodelled Fábrica do Inglês was inaugurated in 1999, based on the original 1894 cork factory.

The museum project within the Fábrica do Inglês walls was internationally recognised by winning an award for best Industrial Museum of the year in 2001.

Silves council ploughed millions of euros of ratepayers' money into the museum until it went bust in 2009. It has been closed ever since and now lies derelict, vandalised and forlorn.

The contents were auctioned and purchased for €36,000 in May 2014, "despite the efforts of the Municipality of Silves in the purchase," by Sr Nogueira of the Nogueira Group which owns the supermarket chain AliSuper.

It was the Alicoop/Alisuper group which in 1999 transformed the old Fábrica do Inglês in a catering and events space before the supermarket group and the venue plunged into insolvency.

The freehold of the site was transferred to Caixa Geral de Depósitos for €2.23 million in lieu of debt. The bank does not guarantee keeping the museum on the site, in fact the bank has said nothing about its intentions for its new asset.

Nogueira at first said he would keep the museum in the Fábrica do Inglês, but later changed his mind as Caixa Geral de Depósitos decided it wanted its freehold, free.

In July, Nogueira said he wanted the public to have access to his collection of cork related artefacts and records at the Fábrica do Inglês site, “or elsewhere.” The addition of the word 'elsewhere' is the reason for the new petition.

The petition objective is a noble one, but a Quixotic one without government intervention.

The museum collection now is privately owned, in fact it always was, and the freehold of the Fábrica do Inglês site is owned by a bank.

Silves council already has proved itself financially incompetent at running an integrated museum and entertainments venue, and lost millions trying to prove otherwise.

The council has blocked any commercial development at the Fábrica do Inglês site thus rendering the Caixa Geral property almost worthless.

Whether this stalemate will be resolved by government intervention remains to be seen but unless the state buys both the museum contents and somewhere to display them, the situation will not change.