Fábrica de Gás do Ouro: da persistência à integração do novo

Abstract

The present study intends to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the future of the buildings of the Fábrica de Gás do Ouro and the Ouro and Aleixo area. The transformation process that the city of Porto is undergoing, deeper in the present time, triggered by tourism and the opening of the city resources desired by the foreign communities has been stimulating the debate on how to adapt the city to the convergent and divergent contemporary social, cultural and economic needs. The object of study serves as a paradigm of the collision between the different variables that may belong to the moments of the territory under intervention: the contrast and relationship between nature and built, past and future, low and high, rich and poor, dense and open, elderly and young, water and land, identity and change, preservation and adaptation. Ouro´s troubled history, segmented by the multiple failed attempts to reconfigure the place, can be explained through the cornerstone of its inclusion in the city´s urban fabric: the Fábrica de Gás do Ouro. Founded in mid- 18th century, it promoted the urbanization of the Ribeira do Ouro valley until its deactivation. From then on, it has persisted neglected while its surroundings transformed themselves with the construction and implosion of the Torres do Aleixo, construction of the Ponte da Arrábida and the metamorphosis from industrial and agricultural area to ever more touristic, commercial and residential zone. Inside this urban structure, Aleixo´s abandoned land, isolated and avoided, is striking because of the chance to create city from scratch. In such a turning moment and expected implementation of a municipal urban plan in the Ouro area, the present study has the goal to understand the object, to analyze the municipal intentions and, in the end, to project and sustain guidelines for the urban intervention on the Ouro's area.