‘Gate of Understanding’ revamp to conclude during Q2

More than four years after it officially closed, the “Gate of Understanding” (Porta do Entendimento), a monument erected in the 1990s in the Sai Van area to symbolize Luso-Chinese relations, is finally going to finish its extensive renovation work, the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) informed the Times.
In a reply to an inquiry on the topic, the DSSOPT said that the conclusion of the construction work is expected in the second quarter of this year.
Initially scheduled to be completed at the end of last year, the DSSOPT justified the delay in the construction using to the “situation of the pneumonia outbreak of the new type of coronavirus.”
According to the DSSOPT, after the conclusion of the renovations, the monument “will be handed over to the competent entities for further procedures.”
The 40-meter-tall monument created by the Portuguese sculptor João Charters de Almeida was completed in 1993 and closed for safety reasons at the start of 2017 after parts of the structure deteriorated to the point where they were falling off.
The revamp of the monument started in the second quarter of 2019 and had an expected duration of 515 working days. The construction work was tendered to the consortium comprising of Companhia de Construção e Engenharia Lei Fung, Limitada and Sociedade de Construção e Engenharia – Grupo de Construção De Xangai – SCG (Macau) Limitada for a total of 38.8 million patacas.
The extensive renovations included work to support the platform and the connecting dock, the replacement of the granite cladding and fixing the pillars that supported the sloped connecting dock, the DSSOPT said, noting the findings from previous inspections of the monument.
Other work included the replacement of the hooks that held the walls, and demolishing and rebuilding the whole connecting bridge dock between land and the monument so that the original structural design and the exterior appearance could be kept the same.

A matter of ethics
In an interview with the Times, the artist said that he had been in contact with the DSSOPT to clarify some aspects of the renovations so that the originality of the art piece is not lost or altered.
“They have been contacting me and asking questions and I replied. [Here from a distance] I cannot see what exactly is being done but I need to believe in the professional ethics of people,” Charters de Almeida said. “People must understand that everything that is authorial work belongs to the author and cannot be changed.”
The sculptor noted that this is particularly important for this work, as it has a “strong impact in emotional terms because at the end of the day, this is an [art] piece that symbolically intends to open the door and place a door between the East and the West and has an inherent political intention of cordiality and good relations.” He also remarked that those that accept working on a piece like this should have strong ethics in their approach.
“I need to trust that the restoration is being done well and respecting the ethics and my intellectual property, but there are absolutely no guarantees on this,” he concluded.

Professor, sculptor João Charters de Almeida

Bringing the monument ‘closer’ to the city
In April 2017, Charters de Almeida told the newspaper Hoje Macau that he had some regrets about the lack of use of the monument over the last few years, noting that the lack of visitation is related to the difficulties in accessing the monument, which is somewhat “disconnected” from the city.
“If there are no people to visit, it is because there is no access. That should be up to the government and whoever makes these kinds of decisions [to solve]. I feel sorry [about the state of the monument] because it is a public work, it was made for public space, and it has an absolutely contemporary symbolism: understanding! That is what we need because nobody seems to want to find understanding [consensus] nowadays,” the artist said.
Charters de Almeida told the Times yesterday that the lack of visitors to the monument was always the case and this occurred due to the lack of maintenance of the space.
“If the access is not maintained and the monument itself is not maintained it becomes unattractive for the visitors, and on the other hand, it becomes an attractive place for other people with dubious intentions who find some shadow [shelter] in it for some not-so-good activities,” said the artist. “But this was not always the case. In the past, it was a very nice place where we could find people in the morning doing Tai Chi and many people would visit it and take photos, etc.,” he added.
Although the timing of the revamp was not clearly explained by the government, the aims seem to be somewhat aligned to the concerns expressed by the artist.
The government is also simultaneously creating the so-called South Peninsula Coastal Corridor, a project that was revived and presented during Chief Executive (CE) Ho Iat Seng’s first Policy Address in 2020.
The project promises to revamp the whole coastal area from the Macau Science Center to Barra.
With work on the project starting May 15, 2020, the first phase was expected to last 208 working days and finish within 2020.
The government announced that it would be investing 60 million patacas into this project.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau’s (IAM) division which was in charge of these works issued a statement shortly after last year’s Policy Address. They said that the ongoing construction work for the first phase of the project between the Macau Science Center and the Statue of Goddess Kun Iam in NAPE was in response to calls from the community for more recreational and leisure areas to be built in the coastal areas.
“IAM will build, in a phased manner, a green corridor on the south bank of Macau, connecting the Macau Science Center to [the Statue of] Goddess Kun Iam and Barra, providing a diversified coastal leisure space and building a healthy city for the people of Macau,” the statement says.
During the first phase, the project spans an area of 15,000 square meters from the science center to the Statue of Goddess Kun Iam.
Preparations to build a cycling path and leisure area linking this area to Barra has begun during the first phase, and will subsequently be built in the second phase.
This new path, where the works are ongoing, will also be the first and closest link to the renovated monument of the Gate of Understanding, connecting it to the Barra area and potentially restoring the original life to the monument.