Entre o Vernacular e o Contemporâneo. Projecto de Reabilitação de uma Herança Rural

Abstract

The following dissertation, "Between the Vernacular and the Abstract Contemporary - Rehabilitation Project for a Rural Heritage", was prompted by the intent of adapting a cluster of traditional buildings to contemporaneity. Despite differing in scale and style all the structures are located in the same "unrural" village - Maçores, which belongs to the Transmontana Warm Land -, meaning, they share the same condition: all vernacular buildings (that probably date back to the XVI and XVIII centuries), structurally debilitated, as well as functionally and infrafunctionally unfit to fulfill the present-day comfort patterns. Therefore, the goal of this paper is one of theoretical reflection, inspired by the project - in Architecture, theory and practice are intrinsically related. As it will be shown, Aldo Van Eyck and Aldo Rossi are the two key-authors for the interpretation of the starting conditions: the place and its identity; the connections between form, History and memory; the creative process starting from the moment of realization; the role of the idea in this same process; and the concept of type. Eventhough being two architects from different contexts with parallel views of the discipline, both Rossi and Van Eyck reflected upon atemporal themes. Intervening on a ruined pre-existing structure built with tradicional construction methods, demands the consideration of its particularities. In fact, if any consensus exists on this dichotomic field - the transformation of heritage - is that each case is particular and only by combining a careful analysis in situ with personal reasoning about the circumstances at hand is it possible to achieve a fair solution: a design with cohesion and beauty which doesn't dethrone the intrinsic values of the existing structures, nor that of the place itself and its adequated to the needs of whomever will inhabit it. In truth, the dissertation at hand is the presentation of this process: the architectural project that tries to conciliate the twin phenomena and one which creates a new place adequate to the present occasion (including the initial measurements, sketches, study models, rigorous drawings from the implantation scale to the constructive detail) and the related critical thought. Insofar, the idea - formulated with consideration to the identity of the place - was the project's starting point; the memory, in all its (un) conscious complexity, guided the waterfall of decisions that culminates in this Architecture project. All things considered, the designing process transcends the final project; more than finding answers we arrived to unsettling doubts. Therefore, this paper is additionally about triggering a wider discussion regarding the theme(s) of rehabilitation.