In the 1950’s there was already a lot of movement around the architect’s community about the preservation of Popular Architecture, and Portugal was no stranger to this need to preserve a vernacular heritage that was bound to disappear. One of the reasons behind this concern was the Modernism’s idea that all past should be forgotten in order to create a new architecture suitable to new needs of “new” people.

1. Le Modulor | Le Corbusier_1948
Portugal, however, had
additional concerns,
mainly a fascist regime
that intended to create
a “fake” past to
Portuguese Popular
and Regional
architecture that
would lead us to
“forget” the misery in
which common people
survived. For that the
Estado Novo (“New
State”) made use of
Raul Lino’s proposals, a
supposed “traditional”
regional architecture,
made up of middle
class houses profusely
decorated.
These invented
models, consequently
inexistent in the
Portuguese rural
landscape where an
attempt to create a
“fake” past, and so, as
a reaction,
“Arquitetura Popular
em Portugal”
(Popular Architecture
in Portugal), a survey
of the country’s
regional popular
architecture was
published, where our
endangered rural
built landscape was
collected and
preserved.
'Arquitetura Popular em Portugal'|Book Cover_1961
(2004 reprint)
In the Estremadura
region, more precisely in
Leiria’s surroundings,
one of the “found” types
consisted in a poorly
built adobe house,
characterized by a
closed porch in the
front, composed by
several volumes built
through time and
according to the owner’s
needs and possibilities
(harboring dwelling,
cattle and crop sheds),
with very poor
salubrity… much
different from the
middle class fantasies of
the fascist regime.
Popular house in Ortigosa/Leiria | sketched upon the
models in 'Arquitetura Popular em Portugal'_1961
Thus, popular architecture being
made in the 1950’s/1960’s was
deliberately ignored as it
corresponded to an “intolerable
miscegenation of architecture”,
although it was still
“architecture without
architects”, made for real needs
and eventually composing the
rural landscape of the Leiria’s
region (in Estremadura).
Although it was still composed
by several volumes, with
different uses, it had a special
feature, that consisted in the
main house, very regular in
shape, symmetrical in its façade
and floor plan with obvious
erudite influences (the
“intolerable miscegenation”?).
But when we talk about “landscape” and
its features we (they?) tend to forget it
as a whole or a sum, not a series of
disconnected elements… and besides
“purity” and “miscegenation” the way
these different types occupy the
territory was similar in key features:
their scale, their fragmentation that
could define a whole, their adaptation to
the topography and local materials (even
if no longer adobe, but still the region’s
chipped stone using earth as mortar).
And once the previous type disappeared
we were “left” with a “new past” that
replaces the “old one” in contemporary
generations, as they are the elements
that compose our landscape, remember
ancients ways of living and subsistence
and constitute a “real” heritage, rather
than an imagined (and desired) one.
Popular Houses in Alcobaça/Leiria | personal
sketchbook_2001
Popular House proposals | in Raul Lino's 'Our
House'_1918
Our Present is our Future Past
rethinking heritage through our contemporary memory
Popular house in Ortigosa/Leiria |
'Arquitetura Popular em Portugal'_1961
Popular Houses in Alcobaça/Leiria | photo survey_2001
So, is “this” past
still to be ignored?
Importing and
reinterpreting
other culture’s
features is such an
improper situation
that could
(should) lead us to
forget one’s
heritage and
promote our
landscape’s built
transformation/
/obliteration? And
if we do, what will
our landscape
made of? Which is
the legacy being
forged nowadays?
on site survey | college
degree thesis_2001
2
3
1
In the 1950’s there was
already a lot of
movement around the
architect’s community
about the preservation
of Popular Architecture,
and Portugal was no
stranger to this need to
preserve a vernacular
heritage that was bound
to disappear. One of
the reasons behind this
concern was the
Modernism’s idea that
all past should be
forgotten in order to
create a new
architecture suitable to
new needs of “new”
people.
Popular Houses in Alcobaça/Leiria based upon Alcobaça's CityHall Licensing Archives| master degree thesis on Architectural Heritage_2006
Again, some fieldwork: we can
now find a massive single
volume house, indifferent to
the landscape and
topography, abusing of
“erudite” references in the
multitude of elements that
“decorate” the housing type:
roofs with various slopes in
various directions like Chinese
pagodas, (a sort of)
greek/roman/neoclassic stone
colonnades supporting
numerous porches, rich
stonework in window frames
and strong colors, all argued
to be “traditional” but brought
from an inexistent local
tradition, in other words, from
an imagined (desired?) past.
Let’s move another 55 years further, to 2070: what
will be this generation’s “past”? And “present”? To
the latest question it’s impossible to answer what
will be “fashionable” or “need” at the end of the
century when society moves faster and faster. But
we can preview a “hypothetical past”: ignoring and
letting disappear our “present past” won’t open way
to the reappearance of the “previous one”, meaning,
the adobe house with the front closed porch. But
most certainly will open the way to a process of
sedimentation of our “present” that will become our
“future past”. A fake one, as we said, capable of
creating fake memories in one’s culture and heritage.
A misrepresentation of a (supposed) erudite
influence that never existed. A
regional-portuguese-popular-and-erudite
architecture based upon a fantasy.
Summarizing, a “historical” lie beyond the “material”
danger where our present rural landscape
disappears.
So, the presented case study -
that actually consists in three
different ones: “their past” (in
the 1900-1960’s), “our past”
(1960- 2015’s) and “our future
past” (2015 and on) - reflects
the need to review some of the
proceedings used to classify and
preserve rural landscape
heritage (preserving valuable
features and/or demising
distressing elements in the
landscape in order to achieve a
major coherence), through a
process that involves social
awareness and an efficient
policy regarding heritage
evaluation and protection
through precise research and
legislation.
Contemporary Popular Houses in Alcobaça/Leiria | photo survey_2001
Portugal |
Estremadura |
Leiria
1960's
Past Present
2014's
?
Future
Past Present Future
Past Present Future
? ?
2070's