At the beginning of July, Quintino Lopes was in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), where he visited the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Bahia, the building that housed the former Phonetics Laboratory of the Federal University of Bahia. He was received by the public prosecutor Alan Cedraz, coordinator of the Centre for the Defence of Historical, Artistic and Cultural Heritage.

The Phonetics Laboratory of the Federal University of Bahia, inaugurated in the late 1950s, was the first experimental phonetics laboratory in South America and was part of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters. It was decommissioned in 1986 and the building became part of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in 1994.

Miguel Soares, a historian who also accompanied the visit, emphasised that “in 2024 it will be 30 years since the Public Prosecutor’s Office occupied this building and here we have important witnesses to the history of this space, which tells a little about the history of Bahia. It’s very important for us to know a little about this history”.

The visit to Brazil was part of the research being carried out as part of the PHONLAB — Phonetics Laboratory: Coimbra – Harvard. Rethinking 20th-century scientific centres and peripheries, funded by FCT and coordinated by Quintino Lopes.

Photo: Alan Cedraz and Quintino Lopes (Credit: Sérgio Figueiredo)