Imaginar o difuso: O médio Ave. Território de conhecimento

Abstract

The theme of the residue, understood in a broad sense, is fundamental in the construction of a sustainable future for our planet. Its incorrect conception as a "waste" of a production line, as a remain, has led, in urban planning, to the perception of some places as areas without value, marginalized, forgotten; specifically, the river has moved from being a central place for the development of civilization as a symbol of marginality. This work aims to investigate how we have arrived at a global negative perception of many waterways, both through historical and geographical analysis and by studying the thought of some theorists, architects and urban planners.The Ave, which flows between the Porto district and Braga one through a region characterized by a form of widespread urbanization, has been heavily anthropized over the centuries, and serves as a perfect example of a forgotten, marginalized place, looking for a new identity. The work therefore takes the hydro-graphic system of the river Ave, with particular attention to its central area, the most affected by industrial changes, as a case study to reconstruct some fundamental steps in the perception of what this dissertation defines as "forgotten". In the travel to the discover of the river, the journey is as much a hypothesis as a research method, a direct instrument for the knowledge of the river space.