Real Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Macieira Dão. Passado, Presente e Futuro

Abstract

The present work will focus on subjects related with the requalification of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Maceira Dão, specifically the development of a proposal/project for the conversion of the cistercience monastery into an inn. Intrinsic to this subject-matter, and within the need of justifying it, we'll address subjects related with the proposal made and the region's turism, aiming for an integrated proposal comprising all the territory .So, this work will start by making the rigorous pin-pointing of touristic spots related to Mangualde's archaeological memories. Later on, the historical evolution and the present state of the monastery, directly linked with the mischaracterization of the national monument, will be essential matters for the grounding of our proposal as a "future" hypothesis for the monastery. Finally, it will be developed the architectural project, addressing issues about it: hypothesis e strategy options, shape and architectural materiality, focusing the territory and the building. At this point, we'll have in mind the two existing models of portuguese inn architecture (Pousada de Portugal e Pousada de Juventude) and we'll defend a new variant, an intermediate model. The whole project will be made accordingly with this intermediate model's principles, such as keeping the cloisters opened and the new configuration of sleeping and eating places, as well as the leisure places, giving them a new sense of community. Besides this, we proposed some guiding principles, namely the volumetric enlargement as a starting point for the heritage's intervention (aside the need of implementing more rooms), as well as the introduction of some hard to control programmatic spaces, like the swimming pool, the tennis court, parking lot and the access route.