Since the 1980s, seaport cities have been characterized by the spatiotemporal concurrence of highly modern terminals away from the city and derelict and/or sub-optimally used inner city harbours and waterfront sites. The post-Fordist city disintegrated into a polycentric fragmented structure with aggravated social confl icts between older residential areas of dockers and requirements for modern expensive waterfront condominiums. The cranes of the shipbuilders’ yards, which used to be a characteristic feature of the city silhouette and a symbol for dynamic port economies, have been dismantled, the land left derelict and contaminated. The formerly close functional and spatial relationship of port and city was relaxed from the end of the 1960s onwards and off ered opportunities for transformations. In this article different approaches for redevelopment und revitalization are discussed.

Like other harbour cities in Europe, Lisbon has an axial development anchored in pre-existing confi gurations which dot from east, more industrial areas, to the west, a more monumental and urban type. The diversity of fabrics and the overlapping of various time layers become decoded through a functional specialization infrastructural line, which, from rural, becomes increasingly infrastructured as part of the on-going reinvention of the city of Lisbon.