VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

In the expansion process of city by juxtaposition or overlapping, it is relatively common to identify integrate parts of the previous phase in the construction of new urban fabrics. These persistent elements, excavated by projected subdivisions or archaeological actions, prove their continuous transformation and give the current city the shape of the inherited city. In this since, the present proposal is a morphological study of the built heritage, particularly the fragments of old convents in Lisbon, with the aim of understanding their capacity to be reused in new buildings in the 21st century. This is a recycle idea of the built heritage, considering conventual pieces that persisted over time, demolish and later partially integrated in new programs. Methodologically, the study seeks to establish a reconstructive and morphological analysis of the built heritage, building and urban form, documenting its successive composition stages until our days, especially its resilience to the introduction of different architectures, programs and spatial organization. In this specific approach the formers convents of São Domingos (hotel), Santíssima Trindade (housing buildings), Santo Alberto (museum) and Espírito Santo da Pedreira (shopping center) will be studied. It’s important to point out, that the proposed study is an exploratory entry for a future research project that aims to build the “Atlas of Reuse in Portugal”, a systemic inventory of the built heritage adaptive reuse. The problem of resource efficiency imposes a sustainable integration in the urban and cultural context, and its inventory results in a useful tool first for understanding the reuse process as well as for designing new functions.