The official public consultation on the future of Hotel Estoril has concluded, and the family of Italian architect Oseo Acconci have now agreed to publicly speak about his controversial artwork on the facade. This is just one of the many fascinating stories Macau has to tell, and it justifies, according to the Acconci family, the need to protect the Italian artist's work
There are few better ways to engage in conversation about Macau’s past than looking at old family photos.
“Here, the history of this city after the war, is told,” says Oseo Acconci Jr., bringing an old, thick hardcover album to the table.
Inside are dozens of photographs of works done by his namesake grandfather. These images show that buildings and public art can be the last example of how collective memory can remain, although many have been swallowed by new projects, and others await the same fate, as is the case of Hotel Estoril.
“There are things in here you will never imagine were the work of ‘nonno’ [grandfather],” says Oseo Acconci Jr.
Indeed, flipping through the pages reveals that Oseo Acconci’s works in Macau are numerous: a photograph of Escola Comercial, today the Macau Portuguese School, designed by Chorão Ramalho; on another page, the “beautiful and simple” Senhora das Dores Church in Ka Ho, designed and built by Oseo Acconci; another photo is of Our Lady of Fatima Church in Mong-Há; in another, the villas of Coronel Mesquita; the houses near the Cathedral, where postal workers once lived, which is currently scheduled to be demolished to make way for a shopping centre.
The list could go on. From one end of the city to the other, the hand of the sculptor, architect and Italian contractor, touches those who call the territory home. Yet despite this, Oseo Acconci – who died in 1988 at the age of 83 – is generally not considered as one of Macau’s celebrated artists.
“‘Babbo’ wasn’t pretentious. He never said, ‘I am an artist’. Instead, he said, ‘I know how to do things’,” says Julio Acconci, who has made a name for himself as a musician in the cantopop duo Soler.
Oseo Acconci was part of the Arco-íris artistic movement, founded by painter Herculano Estorninho, right at the start of the 1960s. At the same time, the facade of Hotel Estoril inherited one of the rare manifestations of the Futurism movement in Macau: a panel featuring a semi-nude woman which has given rise to so much talk, even though the pieces bearing the painter’s signature have been lost.
His grandson shows a close-up of the mural, as it used to be. The family not only advocates the preservation of the facade of Hotel Estoril, but also wants the panel to be restored and, if possible, accompanied by a biographical note about the painter.
The alternative plan suggested by the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, to move the mosaic to another location, is also not being ruled out.
“The question is where they want to put it,” says Arnaldo Acconci.
– A modest goddess –
Oseo Acconci’s family agreed to go public after the closing date of the public consultation on the future of Hotel Estoril.
“We wanted to let people speak. We should be the last to say anything on the matter because it is completely in our interest to preserve the legacy of our father. Now that the consultation is over, we can finally talk and say, ‘This is the truth about the panel’,” Julio explains.
But staying silent hasn’t been easy.
“What people are saying about the mosaic is disrespectful to my father’s work,” Julio admits.
“It makes me sick!” an exasperated Arnold, also an artist, exclaims.
If the profile painting of a semi-naked woman scandalizes the public and “a considerable number of young people,” as Alexis Tam puts it, imagine their reaction to the original concept.
“In the first drawing, she was totally naked. But someone complained. They said there was too much nudity. Our father had to use things like a veil and olive leaves to cover her,” says Arnaldo. “Nonsense,” he criticizes.
“‘Babbo’ realized that, according to some people, the design was indecent,” Julio explains, highlighting that “the image we see today is quite modest.”
What is important to understand here is that this is not just any woman. She is a goddess. Her name is Fortuna.
“Goddess of Fortune – luck, happiness. This does not mean money, despite the fact that many people like to interpret it this way. Both the Romans and Greeks represented this goddess as a young, beautiful and naked woman,” Arnoldo explains. “They are using today’s perspective to evaluate a work of art of the past. One cannot interpret it that way. At that time, no one, not in their wildest dreams could have imagined that Macau would be the world capital of gambling.”
Money. Sex. Casinos – these have all been some of the public interpretations of the mural. But this approach disappoints the family, who heard the artist’s explanations first hand: “I get very annoyed when I hear that this is about gambling. If it were about attracting money, the goddess would have a cornucopia or a sphere. Instead ‘babbo’ designed a dolphin, which represents love; it’s a Christian symbol. The seagull symbolizes serenity. The idea was to wish Macau good luck and well-being,” Arnaldo explains.
The most commonly held belief about the panel was that it was commissioned by Stanley Ho, who has a reputation for being superstitious.
“I do not know if it was him. But I can say that even when someone asked him to do something very commercial, ‘babbo’ always infused his philosophy and gave things a profound meaning,” says Julio.
The musician is pleased with the notion that his father inspired architects such as Manuel Vicente and Rui Leão, who repeatedly praised the pioneering nature of the work of Acconci.
– The Sickle and Mussolini –
The controversial theories surrounding Acconci’s mural went even further, also asserting that a blue shape in the painting represented a communist sickle. But such a symbol could not be more distant from the Italian artist’s political ideology.
“Our father was a man of the right. He would never have used a communist symbol,” says Julio.
“A sickle?! It’s a flying bird! Futurists drew that way,” Arnaldo depairs, confirming his father’s support for Benito Mussolini, as the fascist movement gained momentum and before the alliance with Nazi Germany.
“He believed in the Italian ideal, building a strong Italy, hard work, family. But when Mussolini grew closer to Hitler, he distanced himself. He did not identify with Nazi fascism. He was heartbroken,” says Julio.
When the formation of the Berlin-Rome axis took place in 1936, Oseo Acconci had already left Italy and was working in Hong Kong as a construction developer, having spent two years in Shanghai.
His trip to the East was not politically motivated, according to the family. Acconci’s arrival in China is described by Arnaldo: Oseo was a sculptor and worked in the family factory in a Tuscan village. They made tombs. One day, after a bitter family argument Acconci made up his mind to move far away from Italy. He got in touch with a teacher in Massa-Carara, where he graduated in Fine Arts, and asked him to help him implement his plan.
The young Acconci was given three options for work abroad: Casablanca, Tunisia and Shanghai. He chose China, the farthest option. There was a British company looking for a sculptor to certify the quality of a work – the legendary Peace Hotel, built between 1926 and 1929.
Before Shanghai, Acconci arrived in Hong Kong, where he stayed for a while, learning English under the care of the Canossian Religious Sisters. When he finished the two-year contract with the Peace Hotel, he returned to the then British colony and founded a construction company with another Italian. The business was running well, and one day a Portuguese family suggested they catch the ferry to Macau, where he would eventually also open a firm.
“The Gomes family took him to a restaurant next to the Government Palace. When they brought wine, bread and olive oil to the table, tears streamed down his face. He had undergone two years of deprivation”, laughs Arnaldo.
– The Governor and the thief on the cross –
Acconci moved with his family from Hong Kong to Macau in 1940, six months before Italy joined the Second World War as an ally of Germany and entered into armed conflict with Britain.
“Many Italians thought Hong Kong was too far away to be affected by what was going on. They stayed. Our father, who maintained contacts with the consulate and with friends in Italy, was aware of the meetings between Mussolini and Hitler, and sounded the alarm: ‘We have to get out of here right now.’
“He knew that if he stayed he was going to be sent to a concentration camp in India, like many other Italians,” Arnaldo concludes.
Despite Macau being a neutral zone and Acconci having done work for the Church, “there were individuals in the territory who harboured hostile feelings towards the peaceful Italian and other German citizens living here and earning an orderly living in construction works.”
This explanation is by journalist José Carvalho e Rêgo, in a newspaper article entitled Oseo Acconci deserves to be remembered!
“Our father was desperate. He had no money. He had no job. He had four children. There was no food. Nothing. Until one day, there was a knock on the door,” Arnaldo recounts. It was a deputy secretary informing him that he was being summoned to the governor, Gabriel Teixeira’s, office.
A slightly trembling Acconci got on his bicycle and cycled to the Government Palace, unaware of what trouble he could have caused. He could never have guessed that Gabriel Teixeira was passionate about Tuscany.
“The governor told him that he knew he was out of work and told him about a book he had read, the Maledetti Toscani by Curzio Malaparte. They stood there in conversation and, at some point, the governor called my father to the balcony. The Portuguese flag was visible, and the governor pointed to it over his shoulder, saying: ‘Mr. Acconci, while that flag is here, neither you nor your family have to worry about food.’
“There was employment for him in Public Works. The governor saved my father’s life, and he was forever grateful to Macau,” Arnaldo shares.
The works of Acconci are full of footnotes, some of them even anecdotal, increasing their emotional resonance. Take, for example, The Church of Ka Ho, highlighted by a bronze crucifix on the outside, made by Italian sculptor Francisco Messima. Few may know that at one point in time a real thief hung on the cross on the altar.
“I’ve heard this story so many times,” Julio remembers, recounting it as a failed robbery that ended up in a sculpture.
The setting is Acconci’s warehouse where things started to disappear overnight; theft was suspected. The guard decided to stay up to see if he could catch the thief. It worked and the thief was caught and held there until the following morning.
Acconci arrived and, instead of calling the police, “he had a brilliant idea.”
“He was working on a crucifix and wanted a very realistic human figure. He tried to follow books and drawings, but it wasn’t working. It was then he thought: ‘I will use the thief’.
He told his assistant to undress him and tie him to the cross. The thief was terrified… until our father uncovered the piece he was working on and told him that his intention was artistic,” Julio remembers.
On top of it all, the thief even received payment for his services as a model. Two more Cross replicas were made: one went to Mong Ha and the third went to the Carmelite convent, until it was demolished, after only two decades after having been built by Oseo Acconci.
– Questions for Macau –
For the family, the debate surrounding Hotel Estoril serves to pose a question to society: “What sort of Macau do we want? What do we believe in? The preservation of culture or demolishing to build again?” Julio questions.
He is used to being asked about the essence of Macau, in interviews he gives as a member of Soler.
“When people ask me what makes Macau people different, I usually answer ‘yao chéng meng’, ‘they have a human side’. If this is true, we need to feel some sort of emotions in relation to a work of art or a piece of architecture”.
“The facade of the Hotel Estoril is part of the history of European presence in Macau. There is no denying this. No one can erase history. Macau is supposed to be a city that preserves the crossroads of cultures,” Arnaldo argues, summarizing the family’s position in relation to the Government’s plans for the building.
Despite claiming that the decision on the future of the hotel belongs to the people, Alexis Tam has insinuated that demolition is the best way forward, thanks to the state of disrepair of the structure, which has been abandoned for over a decade. The intention is to convert the space into a performing arts center for young people, through a project by Portuguese architect Siza Vieira as part of a redevelopment plan for Tap Seac Square.
The family has further questions: “If the Government wants to demolish it to build a space for youth, why did they remove the football field, which was so important to the local community?”
The sports field was paved over with Portuguese cobblestones, in a project by architects Carlos Marreiros and José Maneiras that also includes the so-called Glass House. The space was designed to house cultural and creative industries, but has been virtually empty since it opened in 2007.
“We used to play football in Tap Seac Square. Hotel Estoril is part of this memory. Everyone tells me it would be a shame if it disappeared from there,” says Julio. “It is an important memory for many. It was the site of big parties. It was Macau’s first luxury hotel, with the first casino [with Western gaming]”.
Julio does not agree with those who say his father ‘has created something that has corrupted minds for 50 years and has to be removed because it’s a bad influence.’ “Does that make sense?” he contests.
“There’s nothing wrong here. This façade is a unique example of Futurist art in Macau,” Arnoldo adds.