Government Palace of East Timor

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The Government Palace (2018).

The Government Palace of East Timor ( Portuguese Palácio do Governo ) is the seat of the Prime Minister of East Timor and the government. In the Portuguese colonial times , the building was called the official palace ( Portuguese Palácio das Repartições ), as the governor's residence was in the Palácio de Lahane . The government palace is located in Suco Colmera ( Vera Cruz Administration Office ) in the capital Dili .

architecture

The government palace in 2002. Before that, the monument to Heinrich the Navigator.
The government palace in 2011. The forecourt was significantly redesigned in the first years of independence.

The appearance of the palace is based on the buildings on Praça do Comércio , Lisbon's main square . The main entrance in the middle looks north to the Bay of Dili . In front of the palace is a square with a small park with the monument to Heinrich the Navigator , which was erected on the 500th anniversary of his death in 1960. The square serves as an area for ceremonial occasions and as a parking lot. The street Rua José Maria Marques , which formerly ran directly in front of the palace, was divided after the country's independence in 2002 as part of major redesigns on the square and now begins at each end. To the west still as Rua 25 de Abril , to the east as Rua 30 de Agosto . Avenida Marginal runs along the promenade on the bank . Rua do Palácio do Governo runs south on the west side and Avenida Xavier do Amaral on the east side .

The white palace with the greenish hipped roof (originally red) has a ground floor and an upper floor. With the open gallery on both levels of the main front, the building corresponds to the Portuguese colonial style of the 1950s. Three arches of the lower gallery are spanned by the rectangular entrance portal, on which Palácio do Governo is written above . The gallery of the main building has seven more arches each on the left and right. Next to the main building there are two outbuildings to the left and right, moved a little forward. They look like smaller copies of the main building, with rectangular portals again in the middle enclosing three arches of the gallery, flanked by only six arches on each side. The outbuildings are connected to the main building with peristyles with four arches each, which act like extensions of the central building. A new connecting wing leads to the younger building of the National Parliament to the south . On the south side there are other government buildings, including the Ministry of Finance .

history

  • The old governor's palace in Dili

  • Image from 1885

  • Photograph from the late 19th century

The government palace at the end of the 1960s, still with a red roof

In 1860 the Palácio de Lahane served as the governor's residence, while the official residence, built between 1874 and 1881, remained in the malaria-infested plain of Dili. Today's government palace was rebuilt as the official residence of the Portuguese governor as part of the reconstruction of Dilis after the Second World War in the 1950s and completed in 1960.

On the afternoon of November 28, 1975, in front of the entrance to the palace, Francisco Xavier do Amaral unilaterally proclaimed the independence of East Timor from Portugal. Nine days later, however, Indonesian troops occupied East Timor.

From 1999 the palace served first as the seat of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), then the United Nations Interim Administration for East Timor (UNTAET). In common jargon, the palace was referred to as the GPA Building . Since the restoration of East Timor’s independence, the government palace has been the official residence of the Prime Minister and his government . The foreign ministry was also housed in its own building on the ground floor of the government palace before the move.

Web links

Commons : East Timorese Government Palace  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Património de Influência Portuguesa: Palácio das Repartições (Portuguese), accessed on December 5, 2014.
  2. ↑ Dilis city map
  3. ^ Dili's Architectural Heritage of Portuguese Origins: p. 32 , accessed November 4, 2016.
  4. ↑ Tony Wheeler, Xanana Gusmao, Kristy Sword-Gusmao: East Timor. Lonely Planet, London 2004, ISBN 1-74059-644-7 .
  5. ↑ "Part 3: The History of the Conflict" (PDF; 1.4 MB) from the "Chega!" Report of the CAVR (English)
  6. ↑ General Budget of State 2008 , accessed May 22, 2020.
  7. ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of East Timor , accessed December 1, 2003.

Coordinates: 8 ° 33 ′ 15.5 ″  S , 125 ° 34 ′ 42.9 ″  E