Mercado do Bolhão: Património e Identidade

Abstract

Conceptually, according to its classic definition, patrimony refers to the heritage delegated to us by the past, and that we pass on to future generations. In spite of being a valid definition, however, it's not enough to consider patrimony merely as the tangible marks in the historical process. Every cultural manifestations created by Man, have an existence - physical or intellectual - in a specific time and/or place. These manifestations are destroyed and extinguished, exhausted in their own significance and functionality, or persist by surviving to their own creators and era, joining other cultural expressions. And through the dynamics of existence, these manifestations and experiences of the past feed the creativity of new generations of thinkers and creators, in a permanent evolution way, because of their permanence in time. And that is how the culture flows. The collective memory, outlined by the passage of time, it's nothing but a journey through history, revisited and lived at the present through tangible and intangible legacies. Strengthening and symbolizing the sense of identity, this same legacy supports Man's comfortable feeling of permanence and continuity of time. Knowing that to preserve is "to save well; not to lose, retain in memory", we must contemplate the past of our existence and recognize that memory is what makes our past perpetuate irreversibly, bringing it up to the present. By transposing this line of thought to the edified patrimony, its historical, material and functional essence, causes its permanency to be the reflex of an era and/or an author, from the moment when it "starts to exist" and begins its journey over time. In order to continue and maintain that essentiality, it's inevitable a constant sense of metamorphosis that permits to shape the patrimony to the requirements imposed by the modern world, making this call for mutation unavoidable evidence. This metamorphic sense can be practiced generically through two types of actions: conservation by conversion and conservation by transformation. Both actions imply material changes, but only the second imply shape changes. The current discussion about how to intervene (or not intervene) in the patrimony is based between these two converging realities. Current time in which the past is the irrefutable truth, the present is a fleeting moment and the future a constant uncertainty.