IPPAR — Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage

The Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage (IPPAR) was the central-government body that, between 1992 and 2007, ensured the management, classification and safeguarding of the architectural and archaeological heritage of mainland Portugal. Under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and headquartered in Lisbon, for fifteen years it regulated the legal protection of the historic built heritage, forming a central link in the chain of heritage institutions that preceded the present-day cultural administration.

Creation and context

IPPAR was created by Decree-Law no. 106-F/92 of 1 June, within the framework of the reorganisation of the then newly autonomous Ministry of Culture. It succeeded, in the universality of rights and obligations, the Portuguese Institute of Cultural Heritage (IPPC), which had been established in 1980 by Decree-Law no. 59/80. With this reform, the State sought to provide the oversight of immovable heritage with a specialised body endowed with greater administrative and financial autonomy.

The creation of IPPAR took place at a moment of modernisation of the heritage services, alongside the venerable Directorate-General for National Buildings and Monuments, which since 1929 had held much of the competence for works and conservation of the monumental built heritage.

Responsibilities and activity

IPPAR was responsible for instructing and proposing the proceedings for the classification of monuments, ensembles and sites, ratifying the levels of protection and defining the corresponding special protection zones. It was also responsible for the conservation and restoration of a vast body of classified properties under the direct administration of the State, as well as for monitoring Portuguese nominations to the World Heritage list.

Throughout its operation, the institute consolidated the procedures of the classification process for heritage assets and the granting of categories such as that of national monument, ensuring the continuity of the inventory and documentation of the built heritage. Its activity developed under the legal regime that would come to be renewed by the Cultural Heritage Framework Law, and its archives and databases formed a foundation for the work of its successor bodies.

Abolition and succession

The institutional life of IPPAR ended in the mid-2000s, in the context of a new reform of public administration. Decree-Law no. 215/2006 of 27 October determined its abolition through merger with the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology (IPA). In 2007, from that merger was born the Institute for the Management of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage (IGESPAR), which brought together, under a single management, the architectural and the archaeological dimensions of immovable heritage.

The lineage would continue thereafter: IGESPAR would in turn be abolished in 2011 and its competences transferred to the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage. The trajectory of IPPAR, successor to the IPPC and predecessor of IGESPAR, thus illustrates the succession of reorganisations that marked Portuguese heritage oversight between the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, alongside the restructuring of historic services such as the Directorate-General for National Buildings and Monuments.