Portela

Portela is a former civil parish in the municipality of Loures, Lisbon District, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Moscavide e Portela. History In toponymic terms, Portela gets its name from two Portuguese definitions: portela is derived from a corruption of the Latin or , which means "small door" or "entryway"", since it can be considered the access to Lisbon (and/or south part of the Tagus estuary); the term portela is also, literally "a point where a road or street forms a bend or angle, ordinarily in a bottleneck or tributary"". Geographically, the second statement is also true, since the parish's northern limits are cornered by two important bends (Avenida Infante Dom Henriques-IC17 and IC17-A1). Portela's masterplan was deeply inspired by Swiss architect Le Corbusier's utopian scheme of "A Contemporary City for 3 Million People" (1922), and its urbanism based on the premise of a modern architecture that was exposed it to the maximum levels of sun, air and nature (as stated in the 1933 Athens Charter of Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne).