The CUF Workers’ Quarter in Barreiro

In the beginning of the 20th century, the C.U.F. factories started labouring in Barreiro, a village across the Tagus river from Lisbon, producing soap from olive oil, employing 100 workers. Latter a factory to produce fertilizers also starts running, and as the century went on, the industry complex continued growing, turning that old village of fishermen and millers with rural characteristics, into the biggest manufacturing centre of Portugal. In the late 50s, more than 8000 workers labour on the C.U.F. factories. The main sectors of production are the chemistry industries, the metallurgy industry, the metal mechanics industry and the textile industry.Industry mogul Afredo da Silva started his “Social work” plan in 1908, constructing the Workers’ Quarter, Store-room, Bakery and medical post. In 1927 a school was created for both sexes, in 1942, the first refectory, and in 1949 he created the holiday’s colony for the workers’ children. During the 1950s the social building construction continues, with the new C.U.F. quarter, along with cultural and sportive substructures. The economical model of industrial concentration begins to decay in the 1970s, due to the international economic recession, and it’s completely abandoned after the Democratic Revolution that took place in Portugal in 1974.