Valongo, Northern Portugal
The Alfena Cultural Center is located in an old primary school, built on the initiative and at the expense of Commander Manuel Martins Ferreira de Matos. As a school building, it was festively inaugurated on June 27, 1927. In memory of the commander’s only daughter, who died at the age of twenty, the new primary school, which would have cost 300 thousand escudos, was given the name Idalina Matos, represented in bust placed at the top of the school’s central body. The space housed two classrooms, two teachers’ homes, a gym and games court, gardens, a school avenue and had mine water. The Valongo City Council would adapt the school into the Alfena Cultural Center, which opened on June 30, 1999, with an auditorium, reading, exhibition and leisure spaces. More recently, in a joint effort between the Parish Council and the City Council, a museum space was created recreating an old classroom, where some of the assets of the old educational establishment can be found.
