"Vintage Nightlife": Gentrifying Lisbon downtown

Abstract

Over last two decades, culture has played a very important role in large-scale urban transformations. In that sense, nightlife promotion has become one of the most important strategies for urban regeneration in post-industrial cities. This paper explores the newly emerged vintage-style nightlife in the former harbour quarter of Cais do Sodré (Lisbon downtown). To do this, I focus on a recently renewed hostel building called Pensão Amor – formerly frequented by sailors and prostitutes, and today considered the coolest nightlife venue in the Portuguese Capital. After presenting an updated state of the art exploration of gentrification and nightlife, I argue in the second part of my paper that Pensão Amor is currently playing a key role in the gentrification of the urban nightscape in the Cais do Sodré neighbourhood, where its traditional nightlife is today being supplanted by a vintage-style nightlife. Furthermore, I argue that the consumption of this recently promoted vintage nightlife as a new form of social distinction can be also seen as the (re)production strategy of a socially and morally sanitized nightlife which marginalizes everyone who is seen as inappropriate, or in other words, socially perilous to the city branding of Lisbon.