Aproveitamento hidroeléctrico do Lindoso. Um ensaio de valorização do património

Abstract

The hydropower industry is a singular case of territory appropriation since, for its positioning, it considers mainly the proximity to the production source, the terrain's morphological characteristics and the existing energy potential, rather than aspects such as accessibility or the presence of support infrastructures. Thus it is usually located on rural areas, far from the cities development and urbanization, in regions characterized by its distinctive evolution, based on socioeconomic subsistence systems, tied to the soil and its natural resources. Due to this conditions, social and housing buildings had to be developed, parallel to the industrial structure, assuring the workers and other players the conditions to stay on site, even if temporarily. The Lindoso hydroelectric exploitation presents itself as particularly interesting not only due to the pioneering of its construction, executed in the first two decades of the twentieth century, when this industry was still relatively undeveloped in our country, but also for its location, at the mountain region of Peneda-Gerês, a land characterized by its contrasting morphology and vast hydrographic system. The created industry/landscape duality defined, throughout time, the identifying character of the local population. However this character is almost extinct today as a result of the construction of the new Alto Lindoso facility and of the new automated systems that make unnecessary the existence of a resident working core, what, by its turn, gave origin to progressive migratory flows. In this way, the need to preserve this collective memory, associated to this Exploitation's singularity, support the development of enhancement and reutilization projects on the existing socio-industrial buildings, considering their integration and role in the territory, and making them work as a development and revitalization engine of rural and landscape spaces in the framework of touristic and cultural initiatives.