The 15-minute city might sound like a contemporary idea but Alvalade has been living it for generations. One of the neighbourhood schoolsThe 1945 urban plan that gave rise to Alvalade was an answer to a major housing crisis in Lisbon. “The plan took from a utopian urban ideal,” says Nuno Lourenço, an architect working in Alvalade who walks Monocle through the area. Walking across Avenida de Roma, the broad artery that cuts through Alvalade, Monocle arrives at its commercial core, with Avenida da Igreja as its boisterous high street. In Alvalade, Avenida Estados Unidos da América remains one of the city’s most striking testaments to this era, with elongated apartment blocks raised on pilotis.