A miracle of design: Faro, the Palm Springs of Portugal

Faro is much more than a gateway to the Algarve: fans of modernism are now waking up to the way its sharp, angular buildings shine in the southern sun

In the glare of the morning sun, the streets of downtown Faro are a textural hot mess. A faded art deco shopfront sits cheek by crumbling jowl with its neighbour’s rusting balustrades and handmade fondant tiles. A bank swerves around the corner like an ice-cream sandwich hit by pistachio light. Everywhere there are buildings you might generously describe as less art and more nouveau. These are layers of the near past – and I’m smitten.

But in this overlooked city, crowded with dusty anomalies, it is the modernist architecture – strict, sharp, punctuated by flat roofs and sloping angles – that attracts the most attention. Faro has more than 500 of these mid-century buildings, the highest concentration in southern Europe. Perversely, it’s only now that the curious are taking note. From looming, Rio-style high-rises clad in geometric scallops to modernist villas, the structural clarity and sheer chutzpah they share are catnip for the modern enthusiast.