Praça de Touros

Abandoned 1956 bullring in the Malhangalene district, slowly being rediscovered

The Praça de Touros Monumental de Lourenço Marques is a striking circular concrete shell in the Malhangalene district, built in 1956 for bullfighting and abandoned in 1975. The architecture is unmistakable — a low, ringed concrete arena in the Portuguese late-modernist mode, a smaller cousin of Lisbon's Campo Pequeno.

The interior is not normally open to casual visitors, though informal tours can sometimes be arranged with the staff who watch the building. From the outside it is worth a brief stop; the building is part of the conversation about what to do with the city's many empty colonial-era monuments. The neighbourhood around it has a few decent local restaurants and a busy weekend football culture.

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A story
Bullfighting in Lourenço Marques never enjoyed the popularity it did in Portugal, and the ring closed for good after independence in 1975. For years it stood empty and partly used as a livestock market; the round, almost colosseum-like silhouette is now one of the more incongruous sights in the city skyline, framed by Maputo's prefab apartment blocks.