Portugal dos Pequenitos €7 M Upgrade Adds Landmark Models by 2027

Coimbra’s best-known theme park is about to add a dose of 21st-century flair. An ambitious €7 M expansion, due to break ground in early 2026, will plant scale models of five headline-grabbing buildings among the park’s fairy-tale cottages. Within 18 months, visitors should be able to wander through a leafy hectare dotted with miniature versions of Portugal’s most talked-about contemporary works, a move expected to lift the city’s tourist profile well beyond its traditional university tour circuit.

A fresh chapter for an 85-year-old landmark

The plan, confirmed by park director Nuno Gonçalves, pushes Portugal dos Pequenitos into uncharted territory. Founded in 1940, the attraction has so far focused on vernacular villages, colonial pavilions and monuments celebrating the Estado Novo’s view of history. By 2027 it will also showcase five contemporary landmarks, each reproduced at child-friendly scale: Porto’s Casa da Música, the Leixões Cruise Terminal, Cascais’ Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, Lisbon’s Portuguese Pavilion and the riverside Bar à Margem. Together they represent an investment of €7 M, the third and largest capital injection by the Bissaya Barreto Foundation.

Gonçalves says the design team has opted for a continuous landscape ribbon instead of discrete islands. "Our goal is to weave new icons through gardens, ponds and shaded seating so that visitors drift from modernist concrete to vernacular granite without noticing the historical jump," he explains.

Why Coimbra stands to gain

City-hall officials have no hard numbers yet, but local hoteliers are already pencilling in higher occupancy once the miniatures open. Coimbra has enjoyed steady growth since the university quarter won UNESCO World Heritage status in 2013; however, average stays still hover around 1.8 nights. Tourism analysts interviewed by Lusa believe a fresh attraction that appeals to architecture buffs, families and school groups alike could push visitors over the two-night threshold and pump extra cash into cafés, taxis and guesthouses.

Municipal sources point out that the expansion aligns neatly with the Baixo Mondego tourism strategy, which aims to disperse footfall beyond the old cathedral and the Joanina Library. A more diversified offer helps the region avoid the "day-trip trap" that has started to affect Porto and Lisbon, keeping spending power in town after sunset.

Spotlight on the architects

Each selected building carries the signature of a heavyweight. Rem Koolhaas (through colleague Ellen van Loon) left his mark on Porto with the angular Casa da Música. Across the Douro estuary, Luís Pedro Silva wrapped the Leixões terminal in almost one million ceramic tiles. Lisbon contributes twice: Álvaro Siza gifted the riverfront Portuguese Pavilion its soaring concrete canopy for Expo 98, while João Pedro Falcão de Campos designed the glass-walled Bar à Margem beside Belém’s docks. Rounding off the list is Eduardo Souto de Moura, whose red-pigmented pyramids house the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego in Cascais.

Choosing these works in particular gives the park an instant primer on the Porto School, on post-Expo urbanism and on Portugal’s quietly prolific Pritzker prize-winners—all in less than a football pitch of ground.

Shrinking the unshrinkable

Down-scaling such complex structures is anything but child’s play. Engineers will lean on BIM modelling, 3D-printed formwork and high-performance concrete to keep the faceted shell of Casa da Música recognisable. The undulating 70 m roof of Siza’s pavilion, famous for its barely-there thickness, must somehow remain visually weightless even when miniaturised. Similarly, the helical skin of the Leixões terminal demands thousands of custom-cut ceramic pieces—small enough for toddlers to see the pattern, tough enough to survive Coimbra’s winter frost.

Acoustic tricks will also be mini-translated. Designers are experimenting with an "auditorium-in-a-box" approach in which resilient mounts preserve sound insulation at one-third scale. "You still need to feel the hush when you step inside the model," a structural consultant told us, "otherwise it’s just a sculpture, not architecture."

Bridging past and present

Not everyone applauds the decision to mingle avant-garde concrete with the park’s original nationalist tableaux. Cultural historians see a deliberate—some say overdue—effort to re-contextualise a site born out of the 1940 Exposição do Mundo Português, an event that served the Estado Novo’s propaganda machine. Curators argue that juxtaposing old and new allows visitors to read Portuguese identity as a continuum rather than a museum piece frozen in Salazarist rhetoric. Heritage purists counter that excessive layering could blur the park’s interpretative clarity.

The foundation insists the expansion obeys the Burra Charter’s call for reversible interventions: if future generations want to peel back the additions, the concrete plinths will unbolt and the gardens can revert to lawn.

When and how to visit

The final procurement formalities wrap up this autumn. Contractors are slated to move in by January 2026, with a construction window of 14–18 months. If timelines hold, soft-opening could slot into the summer 2027 tourist rush. Tickets are expected to remain within the current €11 range at launch, though a modest uptick is likely once the new area stabilises.