Conservação de uma memória: a arquitetura sanatorial na contemporaneidade

Abstract

With the large amount of degraded buildings in Portugal, it's important to encourage the conservation and rehabilitation. Taking into account that sanatoriums - new architectural typology developed to fight tuberculosis - appeared in a time of big changes, not only in the architecture area with the manifestation of the modern movement and the exploration of new techniques and construction materials, as well as in the medicine area due to the massive spread of the disease, these infrastructures had a significant importance between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. However, and due to the modernization of the medical practices, they were eventually forgotten and many of them are still in a state of degradation. In the Caramulo village, out of a total of twenty sanatoriums, we can currently find nine in this situation. In this context, the present dissertation aims to study the sanatorial architecture development and assess the potential of its buildings can be rebuilt and adapted to the contemporary times, without being placed in question its essence and identity. In other words, look for an adjustment to the new urban and social constraints that define the current context, reaffirming and restoring the sanatorial buildings utility. The aim is to also understand which are the functions that best fit in this type of buildings and how to connect and adjust the new program to the original compositional and spacial structure. To best achieve this last goal, it will be used the principal sanatorium of the former Estância Sanatorial do Caramulo.