Quinta da Conceição is a public park located in Leça da Palmeira, municipality of Matosinhos. Initially it was the location of the facilities of the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Conceição of the Order of São Francisco that arrived there in 1481. With the extinction of religious orders, the friars abandoned the Convent, being sold at auction in 1837, for six contos, to Manuel Guimarães. Finally, in the sec. XX, the farm is assigned to the Administration of the Ports of Douro and Leixões, which will lease to the Tourism Commission of the Municipal Chamber of Matosinhos for the creation of a park. It is then that the architect Fernando Távora, with the collaboration of José Pacheco, Álvaro de Siza Vieira, Alberto Neves and Vasco Cunha, is asked to draw up a plan to improve the farm.

Once on site, the architect is faced with a land where vegetation was abundant and which was full of “relics” left by the Franciscan friars, such as the Chapel of S. Francisco, the Manueline-style Portal, the Cloister, the avenue that connected the various works, tanks for irrigation, a pinnacle and statues. Considering all these “relics”, Fernando Távora is not indifferent to their presence, and uses them as a link between the religious past and the new requalification of the farm. Manueline Portico