Regressar ao Ave: Proposta de Reabilitação de dois Moinhos em Rossas

Abstract

Rossas, a village in the south of Vieira do Minho, north of Portugal, is one of the countless villages where de-ruralisation has been leaving a seemingly irreversible trail over the years. The legacy of the rural world - which includes the traditional water mills, an element that has been always inherent to this landscape - appears more and more as a potential instrument of revitalisation. If we removed it from their current state of abandonment, they could act as an element of attraction for visitors and cultural and economic activities, while simultaneously dignifying the collective memory of a slowly diminishing rural society. Regressar ao Ave: Proposta de Reabilitação de dois Moinhos em Rossas will thus focus on reinhabiting these two small buildings popularly known as Moinhos do Rabano, while using them as an instrument that will help us decompose, piece by piece, a complex infrastructure. At the same time, we reflect on forgotten ways of life, an ancient architecture that was not able to preserve itself, transformed mills and the place of this lexicon in the contemporary world.