In the quite village of Seraulim, just along the railway line is the home of the Almeidas. The Manovikas Founder Therese Almeida and her renowned husband and the oldest living architect, Sarto Almeida.
Portuguese architecture home, the quiet village and the many dogs in the Almeida’s home and there sitting in the front balcao is Sarto Almeida who returned to Goa in 1963 after being in Dar es Salaam, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh until coming home in 1963.
A former alumni of the St Joseph’s School, Bangalore after his return from Tanzania in the 1930’s, and later an alumni of St Xavier’s Mumbai and the famous Sir JJ School of Architecture where he learnt his sketching and drawings and also a former classmate of the famous Mario Miranda, Sarto travelled a long journey before coming home to Goa. He has worked closely with architect B V Doshi in Ahmedabad who’s the brain child behind the IIM Ahmedabad campus and also been an apprentice to Le Corbusier, the brainchild behind planning the city of Chandigarh.
Drive through Goa and the Carmelite Monastery at Aquem, The Goa College of Art, the Partagali Matt in Canacona, the Science Block at Carmel College, Padre Conceisao College of Engineering at Verna, the SOS Village for homeless children and the auditorium at Fr Agnel College Verna, the iconic GCCI building at Panjim, Guardian Angel School at Sanvordem, Laxmi Narayan Temple at Veling are a few of the many landmarks that Sarto spend hours of plotting, drawing, sketching and planning across Goa, these buildings that have served humanity, faith and education across Goa.
“It's two years since I have retired and feel a little helpless that I can’t contribute much to Goa. In the past, in my younger days, fighting for conservation of architecture, heritage, working to keep and restore Margao’s old landmarks,” reminisces a satisfied and happy Sarto Almeida who remembers the role he played in giving Goa a Conservation Committee to restore and renovate heritage sites, which was the first of its kind across India.
“Sarto loved sports and especially football. He went a long way to establish a football team in Mumbai outside the Bombay University affiliations in those days. But I remember as a trustee of the school, Sarto ensured that we had Goa’s first proper Sports Day at the Manovikas School, getting the track and field right, the measurements, the soft pit for the high jump, the landing board,” recollects his wife, the founder of Manovikas School, Therese Almeida.
Therese tells us how Sarto always built from the inside and believes in lighting, working with the people and environment, not causing too much destruction and always being passionate about Goa what people liked about him and across religious bodies be it temples or churches, Sarto was always called for suggestions and built and restore heritage places of worship.
Therese recollects how he worked closely with the Sawmiji at Partagal Mutt at Canacona, and at Veling near mardol besides the priests at the Carmelite Monastery, St sebastien Chapel at Aquem and the priest at St Anthony Chapel at Deussa to build, renovate and recreate spaces that were useful for people to worship better without making much changes to the existing structure.
Methodical in his ways, gentle subtle, a man of vision and architecture being his greatest skill, Sarto is 7 years away from completing a decade but his completed and achieved many milestones and decades of great service while serving Goa, fighting for its restoration and heritage and contributing to its development. The man even went to the Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in the 1990s fighting to save Goa from the destruction of the Konkan Railway. Goa salutes Sarto for his contribution to keep intact our environment and social fabric.