Watercolor of the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso
2025-09-13
Watercolor of the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso came out of one of those chances PoSK meetups always bring. The Cine-Teatro was recently bought by a cultural production company from Lisbon. The promise is to hand it back to the city renovated, with a cultural project built for Porto. I’m hoping to come back for the reopening.
PoSK took advantage of exactly that, the event marking the start of the renovation works. It was the day this space, closed for so many years, opened its doors again. Members with memories of the place shared those stories. I listened closely, as one of the newer members. I’d walked past that building plenty of times before, always wondering what would become of it.
I really admire these modernist Portuguese buildings. The Vale Formoso is one of them. The Coliseu do Porto is another.
About the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso
The building behind this watercolor of the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso opened back in December 1948. It was designed by architect Francisco Granja. It stayed closed for decades. Until this recent purchase by a Lisbon production company, also the owner of the Teatro Tivoli, that’s now promising to give the space back to the city.
Painting This Watercolor of the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso
After walking through almost the whole building, I picked the shade where the old bar’s terrace used to be. I focused on the tower, the old flagpole, and its outline.
Curious passersby kept stopping to see what us urban sketchers were up to. I kept sketching the building in my sketchbook, one watercolor layer at a time. This illustration ended up capturing that detail that caught my eye so much. It was a good day of urban sketching, and this watercolor of the Cine-Teatro Vale Formoso stayed somewhere between old memories and curious people passing by on the street.