The casino at Armação de Pêra’s opened in 1958, enjoying a golden age in the 1960s which led to a period of decline and closure in the 1970s.
Brief stints in the 1980s as a bar and a café did not provide the financial stability needed to enable the building to be maintained, or restored when necessary.
The building was partially restored in 1999, and has been used on-and-off for art exhibitions but never again found its feet.
The casino has been sidelined by successive councils despite the building's excellent position overlooking the beach and sea from the mid-point of Armação de Pêra’s promenade.
In the post-war, Salazar years, tourism was encouraged on a limited scale and the Armação de Pêra casino, amongst others, was built to attract a high class of foreign tourists to the Algarve.
The Salazar government and the Secretariat of National Propaganda, later the National Secretariat of Information, Tourism and Popular Culture, moved to portray Portugal’s image as increasingly tourism-friendly and started a programme of inviting well-known artists to produce posters and tourist adverts depicting the country’s regions.
Another aspect of the Salazar publicity machine was to invite big names from European and world culture to enjoy a few days in the country at the taxpayers’ expense, announcing later in the press that certain personality "had spent their holidays in Portugal."
Many on the A-list spotted the ruse and declined the kind invitation, aware of the repressive regime that pervaded Portugal’s society.
As part of this pitch for high-class tourism, a theme still being grasped at by the current regional tourist board, there were programmes to provide an infrastructure to accommodate and entertain well-heeled tourists. This is why the casino at Armação de Pêra was created.
Those days are long gone, since which the casino has failed to find a secure position as a public building or as a privately run venue.
Silves council is well aware that the building has just sat there for decades and has decided that the public should be given a chance to decide the casino’s future with a consultation period open until February 2016.
However, the council seems to have made up its collective mind as to what the future holds for the building and has announced a wish list of community facilities that may end up unused or poorly attended.
"The council wants to look at the redevelopment of Armação de Pêra’s old casino because it is an emblematic building of high historical and architectural value, a reference point in the urban environment, as well as an integral part of the identity and collective memory of Armação de Pêra’s people and the Algarve itself," announced Silves Mayor, Rosa Palma.
So far so good, but the council already has plans for the space, albeit rather dull ones and perhaps unwanted by locals.
The council’s intention is to create and implement "a sustainable funding model" i.e. one that won’t lose money, and to repair and restore the building to create a tourist office, a multipurpose room with a stage and spaces for exhibitions, lectures, receptions, meetings, etc, a restaurant and an area for reading, information technology, education and culture.
The public are asked to ‘participate in this process,’ using the Silves Camara website to lodge their suggestions.
Interested parties can go to the Armação de Pêra parish council where all will be explained, alternatively, here are the plans and description of the council proposal:
Council proposal (Portuguese) .pdf
Council redesign plan - .pdf
