Casa dos Bicos

Casa dos Bicos ("House of the Beaks/Spikes") is a historic house in the civil parish of Santa Maria Maior. The house, built in the early 1500s in the Alfama neighborhood, has a façade of spikes, influenced by Italian Renaissance palaces and Portuguese Manueline styles. It survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that destroyed much of the city, but over time was abandoned as a residence and used as a warehouse. After a 20th-century renovation, it became the headquarters of the José Saramago Foundation and a location of the Museum of Lisbon.