Da nostalgia à contemporaneidade. Uma pesquisa para um projecto. Projecto (s) e processos para uma pesquisa

Abstract

The present dissertation is the result of the combination between the research and the process of work conducted for the design of a project. It is about an intervention in a house in ruins, whose purpose is its reuse. A project that is the starting point for a precise search field, due to the pre-existence inherent condition and the problem of reconversion associated with it. How to intervene in a building in a state of ruin, between the inability to revert it to its original condition and the material memory of the passage of Time? That is the question to be answered when the need for its transformation is present. As a complement to the theoretical research, the references and the design process, was held a trip to Sicily in July 2015, which had an undeniable influence on the consolidation of knowledge and on the attempt to answer the problem that arises. This paper is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, the issues that incite the reconversion project of the ruin are posed: Ruin, Memory and Architecture. The aim is not to do an extensive critical review of the meaning of each of these terms, but to present the personal stance that was built in response to the concerns of the design process. We try to understand the meanings, possibilities and difficulties of a building in a state of ruin as a material of project, and the emotions caused in the Man who observes it and wander in it. To understand the extent of their influence on Man, it becomes inevitable to call upon the relationship between memory and architecture, particularly in the potential of the domestic space as personal memory device. Two interventions, that become unavoidable references due to their paradigmatic approach that uses memory to redesign the collective space in ruins, are presented. In the second chapter, we focus on the problem that we pretend to probe - how to intervene in a pre-existence. Starting from the awareness that each posture of intervention arises from a problem of interpretation and from a particular cultural context, we try to unveil the main intervention criteria that have existed throughout the history of architecture. We analyze them as foundations of ideas of project that have distinct consequences in the transformation of the character and in the experience of the pre-existence. Taking into account our present moment, we expose some contemporary interpretations that result in distinct ways of materializing the limit and the dialogue between architecture built in the present and the past fragments. The criteria for the selection of these examples have been the unity of the architectural object, as well as legibility, independence and identity of each time. In the third moment, the circumstance on which will be conducted the project of intervention is presented as a place that carries a memory of a program and a memory of a specific materiality. Thus, we intend to know it as a place in its physical and cultural condition, which is revealed in its relationship with the territory and its position on the landscape. We intend to know it through the memory of the program that gave it its form and meaning. We intend to know it in its material dimension, understanding the fragments of the ruin as a relevant material for project, which has a certain nature, capabilities and limitations, as well as "tectonic" evidence.