Pedalar contra o vento - A arquitectura dos comboios azuis, das noites ao luar e das cidades intermináveis.

Abstract

This master thesis intends to show the inner journey taken, in a travel to India within the Erasmus program. This journey is a result of a close interaction of Experience, Photography, Drawing, the Project and the Sound Landscape. The objective is not only to acknowledge events and principles during that period in the distant country where the program took place, as well as comprehend and amplify a huge range of feelings and episodes in order to understand what stood unchangeable in the way of thinking and acting after returning. The final purpose is to convey and describe, through these different dimensions, the lived experience in a different reality so distant and yet so many times very close to the one we live. Thus, the written experience symbolizes a personal touch that is diffused through spatial references completed by thoughts, sounds and smells. The Photography helps, revealing a whole ocean of discoveries. The Drawing on the travelling sketchbook illustrates us a relaxed and disengaged approach of a traveler that is willing to grab and memorize as much of the unique and unrepeatable moments that he is testifying. The Project studies and suggests, after the approach to the site and environment, speculating about the public and the private, the scale and the "place", the value of religion and the fleeting illusion of an architectural control. The sound evocations aim to thicken the atmosphere, therefore sharing with the reader the soundtrack that accompanied not only the experience but also writing.