2005 © Oficina Virtual de Turismo
In spite of the many vicissitudes that throughout
the years have determined the town’s evolution, it can be seen that the
historic centre remained unharmed by the building and speculative drive that
has greatly affected the city’s process of urban reform.
Progressive adaptation of the historic urban nucleus to the modern way of life
and its stricter demands (regarding security, comfort, etc.) is important, but
so is preserving its identity. With this aim in mind, beyond architecture, what
is important above all is to retain the resident population, and for this
reason a systematic recovery and improvement of the dwellings was undertaken,
choosing to invest, while reforming, in the reassessment of public spaces, as
well as in facilities and infrastructures, as a strategy inducing or
stimulating to private interests. This also means giving a new impulse to the
historic centre as a nucleus of reference, given the quality of its
architecture and its urban spaces, its reduced scale, its potential for
offering activities that bring about human encounter, attempting a formal and
functional rehabilitation of the entire “urban continuum”, establishing closer
ties between the historic centre and the periphery, interconnecting
complementary potentials and functions.
The logic behind public intervention in private buildings is, above all, one of
scrupulous restoration and improvement, avoiding any excessive renewal.
Intervention thus becomes a process of maintenance rather than one of
substitution of what exists, learning by experience on the site in selected
public spaces and from work done for private owners and tenants with limited
economic resources.
The traditional construction techniques in Guimarães are derived from practice,
from oral transmission bringing the past into the present, continued experience
and craft. It is in the combination of these factors that the inherent wealth
of traditional techniques resides, Man being the agent of practice and of
tradition.
The improvement of public spaces in historic settings has obvious consequences
for a better quality of life in these dense urban networks. In historic towns
the lack of domestic space was always made up for by the use of public spaces
and facilities (…)
The authenticity of the medieval urban fabric of the historic centre of
Guimarães, of a spontaneous nature, is absolute, since it bears testimony to
more than a thousand years of occupation, and contains a particular type of
construction. A large part of the buildings now standing go back to the
seventeenth century and were erected using traditional building techniques.
These constructions that densely pack the urban network make up a cultural
legacy to be treasured.
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