1. Introduction: recycling architectures
To work on what already exists giving it a new use and meaning is a major issue in the current cultural an architectonic discussion. To reuse the existing buildings is above all a material matter, key for the environment – the proposal here is to call it recycling architectures –. However, this text does not focus so much on materials, resources and energy but on exploring the circumstances that turn reusing buildings into an interesting activity for architects, both intellectual and practical. This exploration is organized according to three circumstances. First, as a society: to recharge new programmes. Then as political citizens: rethinking the pre-existing elements of the city and improving the place. Lastly, as architects, making a dialogue with history.
The mutation of buildings is a necessary condition for the survival of built objects over time. There are three ways to perform a repair work on a particular damaged building. The three strategies as Richard Sennet pointed out consist of restoration, remediation or reconfiguration (Sennett, 2013, p. 212). The first is governed by the object’s original state; the second substitutes better parts or materials while preserving an old form; the third re-imagines the form and use of the object in the course of fixing it. In any case, the end result of the relationship between the existing and the new can take many different paths and end goals. However, there is only one assumption that must be transversal to every contemporary architectural approach: the relationship between reading pre-existing structures and design can never assume a deterministic mood, but only inform a creative and individual process (Dias Coelho & Fernandes, 2022, p. 102).
Building mutation projects are promoted and, in turn, drive urban sedimentation processes. Urban sedimentation is defined as “a tension between private plots and between these and public space that slowly reconfigures the fabric over a very extended time, and is basically characterised by its deformation” (Dias Coelho, 2014, p. 27). The result of this process of sedimentation and mutation is always a balance between the introduction of changes and the preservation of pre-existences. European cities can go from being seen as theme parks of picturesque antiques to being models of resilience, in which there are exemplary postproductions and urban reactivations that look towards future.
The methodology includes the CONTEXT perspective, which shows adjustment effects or in where the built form is determined by the city – physical and manufactured artefact that support the building – using type-morphological studies and space syntax analysis. In the TIME perspective, a reflection on the evolution of built forms focused on a critical approach to the recycling potential of architecture, analysing the descriptive memories written by the architects in order to understand the project mechanisms of manipulation of form and materiality, of fusion or contraposition of different times. Finally, visiting the works to observe the use of space with the new PROGRAMME, observing the articulation between the composition of the built forms and the new function of space. But these approaches cannot be considered in isolation, because they are interrelated.
As a result, it is remarked the importance of reading urban form as a design tool – a transition from history to project - and the role of the architect as historian establishing a strong dialogue with the pre-existing – the transition from the project to history. The following case studies represent a critical sample of different ways of using history as a design tool by the Portuguese architects Álvaro Siza, José Neves and Eduardo Souto de Moura, who skilfully combine different ways of introducing old maps, the environment, and old buildings.
2. Programme: Reconstruction of Urban Blocks in Lisbon
Building transformation operations cannot be distinguished from the urban regeneration initiative, since the process of building metabolism must also respond to issues of streets, squares, adjacent collective areas. Reading urban form is not just drawing extemporaneously or ex-novo. Surveying the architecture of the city also involves consulting historical documents, maps, urban plans: a set of existing drawings, made by architects for other architects, to communicate visions, projects, or more simply to transfer knowledge.
The reconstruction of the Chiado district (1988-2015) in Lisbon’s Baixa Pombalina is an exceptional example of recycling architecture. Not only does it consist of reuse, but the proposal starts from ruined buildings and examines the mechanisms for updating their image, use, and relationship with the environment. In the reconstruction of the Chiado, the history of the city becomes the main design tool for the renewal project, and the planned programme combines several functions: parking, warehouse, offices and cultural and leisure areas.
In 1988, a serious fire broke out in the Grandella warehouses, next to Carmo Street. The fire spread rapidly due to the neglected state of the neighbouring buildings, resulting in the worst disaster in Lisbon since the earthquake of 1755. Eighteen buildings covering an area of about 10,000 square metres in the heart of the city were destroyed. Alvaro Siza Vieira was invited to lead the recovery of the area in an unprecedented urban regeneration operation. Siza’s Reconstruction Project (1998-2015) does not aim to make profound changes, but rather to make small corrections and adjustments. These transformations reinforce the sense of the entire city centre, giving continuity to the Pombaline logic. The street layout, block type and façades were designed in the 18th century as part of a masterplan, although their development took more than a hundred years.
In order to evaluate and accurately compare the configuration of the urban space of the past and the present the method employed is the theory and analysis of space syntax. These analyses provide us with key knowledge to understand the degree of integration, accessibility, connectivity and visibility of an open urban space, allowing us to objectively and scientifically understand certain urban phenomena (Beltran, 2023). The first axial map (Fig. 1) identifies Garret Street, which connects to Chiado Square, as the street with the highest level of integration, the street most used by people. The axial integration map of the current state of this urban fragment shows that the diversification and extension of routes reinforces the original structure, giving even more integrating force to Garret Street. As a result of this complex process of reconstruction following Siza’s master plan, and incorporating other Portuguese architects in its materialisation and expansion, as Souto de Moura (Fig. 1, block C) and Gonçalo Byrne (Fig. 1, block D) the area has now been revitalised and new movements and possibilities have been consolidated.
One of the great proposals of the intervention was to establish new routes, to facilitate the use and give public life to these inner spaces of the blocks, opening courtyards and creating passages. Moreover, the intention was to diversify the uses by introducing commercial activities open until late in the evening to increase urban movement in the centre, cultural activity and nightlife. The shopping centre (Fig. 1, block C), was designed by Souto de Moura. Today, the area is revitalised by the presence of strong commercial and social flows and opportunities.
The need to open up courtyard B (Fig. 1, block B) to the public was obvious to Siza. He realised this as he walked around the courtyard when everything was still in ruins. There are many topographical irregularities in this block, and the idea was to create a connection between the upper and lower parts, entering from Rua Garrett and Rua do Carmo, by placing a staircase in front of the Carmo Church, transforming the interior of Block B into a passageway. Siza recognises that sometimes the solution to the project is already in the place, so knowing the history, the pre-existing urban survey is a useful and valuable tool for making projects in and from the place. In reference to this staircase in block B he said: “To me it seemed like a great discovery and an invention, but then a historian who participated in the project found an image in an old engraving of the city where this door and a staircase can be seen. So, what seemed clear to me through intuition was nothing more than confirmation of a historical fact” (Tostado et al., 2017, p. 41).
As architects, we are accustomed to projecting a (near) future and proposing alternatives that speculate on the present. However, the reverse is less common. That means, these alternatives derived basically from the present and are based on “what is” and “what has been” as opposed to “what could be” and “what could have been” (Mayrhofer-Hufnagl, 2022). The example of the renovation of Chiado, in Lisbon’s Baixa Pombalina, is an example of the architectonic, urban, economic and social regeneration process of a historical centre, based on an in-depth knowledge of urban history, contemporary and historical urban relief, and interdisciplinary collaboration to understand the past, which sometimes already contains the project solution.
3. Context: a New Square in Torres Vedras
The Carnival Arts Centre (2012-2020), designed by José Neves in Torres Vedras, was born with the purpose of giving a second life to a ruined slaughterhouse and a disused quarry in a suburb of the city, and regenerating the urban fabric and life. In this project, the pre-existing elements in the environment of the building are empowered for the creation of new urban spaces, in an example of the force that pre-existences exert, procuring their permanence through a resistance to the alteration of their traces, which can be adapted to almost any use.
On a 19th century military map of Torres Vedras[1], the slaughterhouse is located at the foot of a hill, near to a chapel, Chapela da Nossa Senhora do Ameal, and a fortress, Forte de São Vicente. This map proves that the slaughterhouse was a structuring building in the configuration of the northern part of the city and has a memorial value. At the beginning of the 21st century, the urban landscape around the building was characterised by the presence of viaducts, hypermarkets and car parks – forming one of the main entrances to Torres Vedras – and by the adjacent neighbourhood Bairro dos Reis. The project responds to these two realities without creating a confrontation with these pre-existences, serving as an articulating link between the urban scale of the access to the city and the everyday scale of the neighbourhood. The historic building itself has no heritage value, but in its transformation the façade is preserved as a layer of historic significance and as the main access to the complex, adding a large volume suspended above the existing building.
José Neves admits that the existence of a disused quarry behind the slaughterhouse became one of the main references for the project. The architect affirms that one of the missions of professional work is to know how to discover the possibilities of each project, in order to make a “proposal”, to suggest something that was not foreseen and that, in the end, turns out to be an obvious solution (Neves et al., 2021, p. 6). This idea allows him to go beyond the intention of reusing an abandoned building and to think about the city, about the creation of new urban elements for public space. This is one of the lessons that the architect Luggi Snozzi emphasised as a teacher: “When you design a road, a barn, a house, a neighbourhood, always think of the city”. (Snozzi, 1994, p. 400).
In the Carnival Arts Centre, a square is offered to the city, transforming the quarry into a public space. Before the intervention, the quarry was a large plateau covered with vegetation and surrounded by a rock excavation that appears as a vertical wall. The site for the new square was defined by the size, shape and materiality of these pre-existing elements. The square is elliptical in plan, reinforcing the configuration of the quarry itself, and is conceived as an urban theatre for the celebration of the carnival, and as a stage for the everyday life of the neighbours.
The plan (fig. 2) shows that the square is located on the opposite side of the main entrance and although it is permanently open, it has a single tangential access from the side street, which means that it is not a space for walking across but exclusively for being. This limitation in its accessibility and its hidden location for those arriving at the building from the main façade, make it look more like the backyard of the building than a square. In addition, the building embraces the elliptical shape of the square with a gallery, reinforcing this closed character. The cafeteria and the museum workshops open up to the gallery, extending its activities to the Plaza. The steep slope of the quarry forms the backdrop to the public space and is transformed into a grandstand that closes the ellipse, giving the open space a strong scenographic character, which is used to host the main events of the carnival.
The singularity of this project is precisely this process of generating a new urban form. As Mamfredo Tafuri remarked in an interview with Casabella magazine: “in order to deal with the problem behind the work, the historical must forget every prejudice about its quality” (Tafuri, 1995, p. 96). This reflection notes the distance between a rich spatial discourse architecture, within the building itself, and an urban solution that improves the city life. In other words, studies on urban sedimentation and on the mutation of buildings in a given context could be considered separately, because a project does not necessarily respond convincingly to both problems.
In this intervention, the study of urban pre-existences helped the architect to make better choices and did not limit his creativity, but paradoxically enriched the original commission. The architect José Neves acted in an attempt to read the historical structure of the city and to use this reading to the benefit of the city, giving continuity to the pre-existence, avoiding having to start from scratch. The CAC building demonstrates that the site almost always already contains a project, if the architect is able to read events. In this case, considering the environment means considering history.
4. Time: a “Monumental” Passage in Braga
Working with the time variable as a definer of compositional systems is a resource with great potential for generating tools that allow a suitable dialogue between the pre-existing architecture and the new intervention. (Bosch-Roig & Docci, 2023). The building of the Carandà market in Braga allowed Eduardo Souto de Moura to build twice on the same site, the second time creating an “archaeological ruin” of his first intervention, and adapting the interior and exterior spaces to the new use of “cultural market”. The project began when Souto de Moura was still student, working with his professor of the final year, who was an urban planner in Braga.
The first project, in the 1980’s, gave continuity to what already existed, working with the stone walls. The architect admits that the reuse of the wall structures was not an absolute choice, but rather a circumstantial one: “I found interesting consider history form another point of view and make the most of the contradictions, the transition and the encounter between the new and the old. As there wasn’t a lot of money, it was necessary to work with the preexisting, though not from the conceptual standpoint of respect. It is a very Portuguese issue, to get there and have few people, very little money, and transform the previous models of Portuguese architecture in order to use the preexistening”. (Souto de Moura, 2021, p. 87)
Another key aspect to give continuity to the pre-existing was learning form the urban form of the city to insert the new building in Braga’s urban development process. The settlement is of Roman origin, recognizing the ancient structure of axes cardos and decumanus, the position of the Cathedral, the forum, and the Villa of the Bishop of Braga. The city has also medieval pre-existences: the walls, the gates and the squares with the monasteries. The Baroque period consolidated the radio-centric character of the city, and in modern times, the external belt was expanded with the hospital, schools, and other social and urban services, whose rigid development, in the form of rings, left residual empty spaces, such as this one where the Carandá market have risen. The knowledge about the urban form helped Souto de Moura to make better decisions. The building designed in the 1980s has a markedly urban character, well connected with the pre-existing urban fabric: a covered public passageway connecting two radial streets, counteracting the radio-centric character of the urban structure.
The main idea of Souto de Moura was to follow the Greek model of “stoa” on two levels, divided into three zones, each specialising in one type of product (vegetables in the middle, fish on the right, and meat on the left), establishing a clear separation between the circuits of goods and people. The project was also strongly influenced by Rossi, porticoed like Gallaratese. So, the dialogue with history of architecture becames fundamental to understand the style. As Rossi said: “We can resolve to build ‘monuments’, but to do that we need and architecture, that is, a style” (Rossi, 1995).
Over time it started having problems on the roof, supermarkets began to open nearby, and ended up becoming a ruin. Before demolishing it, the mayor asked Souto if he wanted to design a second life for the building. The architect observed that the market was still being used as a passage, this fact confirmed that the programme could be changed, but the urban function of the “street” had to be preserved. Souto worked with the theme of the pre-existences with total freedom of thought, proposing an original form of “contemporary archaeology”, demolishing what was no longer useful and preserving what could be used for new purposes. The market roof was demolished and the pillars were preserved, with their steel cables exposed at the top, evoking concrete trees and giving shape to a contemporary garden with artificial elements, in which architecture and nature enter into dialogue, in a monumental and ceremonial Promenade Architecturale.
The initial market’s reference to the Greek stoa is preserved, with the pillars converted into pieces of modern architectural archaeology, which diversify and enrich the sensory experience in the open space. The building of the new music and dance school preserves the triple division of the previous market, for the sale of vegetables, fish and meat, transformed into spaces for the association, for the music school, and for the dance school, respectively. The remains of the previous building, the courtyards and urban routes alternate with places for the human actions of resting, meeting, strolling, enjoying the weather and the view.
When Souto explains the conversion project, he likes to say that the precedent for this project was the Diocletian’s Palace in Split, where architecture is transformed into a city. The example of the transformation of the Braga market shows Souto de Moura’s strong pragmatism in working on the relationship with the pre-existing buildings. In the process of identifying the significant elements that represent the starting point for the development of the project, Souto says that every arbitrary possibility can be admitted, arguing that every architectural problem can accept many possible solutions, and that every architect can design coherently starting from very different objectives and methods (Bogoni, 2020, p. 58). Souto sets out the rules for solving the architectural project, acknowledging that it is only one of many possible ways, his own, thus proving his teacher Fernando Távora right when he said that “in architecture the opposite is also true”.
An architectural project has a very particular logic, based on a construction that is internal to the project itself, but nourished by the geographical and historical culture contemporary to the moment of the creative act. Through this example we can clearly see that it is in the architect’s attitude to the pre-existence and in his ability to synchronise with the architectural, historical, geographical and socio-economic context that the originality and strength of each project lies.
5. Conclusions
The three urban interventions based on recycled architecture stand out as examples of the synchronisation, through the project/design, of different approaches to place in relation to space and time: the chronological component of dialogue between times, including formal, material and/or compositional innovation; the geographical component of environmental improvement; and, finally, the socio-economic component that explains the new programme.
As we have seen, the use of pre-existences can be extended beyond the poetic discourse on the relationship between the new and the old, beyond the search for innovation within the history of the profession, specifically affecting the regeneration of the city, beyond the walls of the building.
In response to the commission to restore the degraded buildings, the architects think of the city, and make a proposal to improve urban life, creating new open public spaces, designed on the appropriate scale, offering new routes for walking and places to be, sit, rest or meet. What all three actions have in common is that they generate new urban elements - a street, a square, the courtyards of the blocks - making an original interpretation of the pre-existence, drawing three useful strategies for the planning of the city of the future.
The case studies have proved useful in advancing a broader investigation into the relationship between the project and history. From the work of Souto de Moura, José Neves and Álvaro Siza, in places such as Braga, Torres Vedras and Lisbon, we clearly perceive the role of the architect in bringing historical precedent to bear on the contemporary practice, in studying old maps of the city to understand the use of space in the past, in incorporating the environment into the project, or in doing archaeology with the ruins of pre-existing buildings.
