Elementos e sistemas do regime comunitarista. Do território às práticas sociais. O Alto Barroso e a aldeia de Paredes do Rio

Abstract

This master thesis aims to explore the spacial reasoning behind the village of Paredes do Rio, a village with a former social organization based on communitarism. Understanding the geographical, productive and social frameworks, as well as the settlement processes applied to the Alto Barroso region throughout history, makes it clear that Paredes do Rio fits into one of the forms of settlement in Portugal - the rural concentrated agglomeration. Analyzing the urban structure of this village, alongside with its architectural elements reveals just how much the social and productive preindustrial ways of living may have influenced the production of space. The aim is to use as case studies the community's equipments and spaces that together make the village space. On an urban scale, the focus goes from the elements conforming the pathway network and the hydraulic system to the analysis of the village's urban spaces. Then, by magnifying into the architectural scale, one seeks to further understand the equipments put into the community service. For each of these structures there will be given the graphical survey as well as the analysis of the structure shape, program and relation towards the urban space. Such case studies include the small watermills inside the village, the fulling mill, the village's bread oven, the village's bull cowshed and the parish church.