Lisbon Waterfront, the soul of a port city (original) (raw)

The Dynamics of Urban Form: With a View of Sixteenth Century Lisbon

2015

The Dynamics of Urban Form With a View of Sixteenth Century Lisbon 1 by Isabel Marcos "The essential is thus not to distinguish the 'real' from the 'represented', the historical from the mythical, the fact from the legend, nor to reduce the one to the other or the other to the one, these being simple exercises, the essential is to see the generation of differentiated spaces. The essential is to see that there is not only one space whether real or represented (a particular conception), but any number of spaces, imbricated ones on the others, inextricably. This is difficult to imagine, at present: the multiplicity of spaces" 2 (Michel Serres). A MONG THE MANY DIFFICULT CHALLENGES presented by reflection upon the spaces of our architectural conceptions is the search for the mechanisms underlying the generating mecanisms of the urban form, the city as such, as a spatial unfolding. Michel Serres proposes perspectives on how space is generated from a multiplicity of differentiated spaces, interrelated somehow through threads of relations:"*^ multiplicity of spaces'. He also reminds us of all the difficulties with which this way of thinking confronts us.

Lisbon: Between History and Modernity

2012

a group of nineteen Cal Poly undergrads lived and studied in Lisbon, led by City and Regional Planning faculty Vicente del Rio and Zeljka Howard, with the support of the Universidade Lusofona and faculty from their Department of Urbanism. The group included thirteen students from CRP, five from Landscape Architecture and one from Architecture. This was the first time the CRP department offered an international study program of such kind. The main part of the program consisted of an urban design studio at the university campus that lasted the four weeks of the trip. The class was organized into five interdisciplinary teams each including a sudent from Universidade Lusófona's Department of Urbanism. Their task was to to design a mixed-use development for the area of the old Feira Popular (Popular Fairgrounds) in Entre Campos. Although the site is within a very busy area and it is served by important avenues and an intermodal transit station (train, subway, and bus) it had been vacant for years waiting on court decisions on its future development. The project was a big challenge for our students not only because of their immersion in a totally new context but also because of the site's important cultural past and its potential as one of the last big land reserves in central Lisbon. The teams responded to the site's opportunities and constraints extremely well, and came up with creative but feasible solutions that impressed the local faculty and the director of Bragaparques, the then proprietors of the parcel. The Summer Program also included a series of talks by local professionals and faculty, visits and studies of projects and places

VISAO DOS FUTUROS DE LISBOA 1121 10 GEOGRAPHICAl ENTRIES FORA VISION OF lISBON'S FUTURES

In "Futuros de Lisboa", EGEAC 2018 isbn 978-989-8167-81-1, 2018

Thinking about the future can start from a different look at the present - the will to change the state of things, from what they are to what they should be To call into question the intuitive reading of the present (with an implicit future) is often the beginning of a reflection on possible and/or desirable future scenarios. It is in this context that I need to inform the reader of the options I have made in different moments of the text in arder to make the discourse "viabla". In fact. this text stems from the ambition of the geographer-planner-urbanist.the tempered critica I scrutiny of the geographer, and the exalted narrative of the accidental chronicler. In this proposal I tried to stick to the conventional limits of Geography, emphasizing some basic contents: the scales, the location, the site, the climate, geomorphology, hydrography, the relations of human beings with the environment. Perhaps warned by Malcom Miles's (2003) Strange Days essay on the possible consequences of dystopian visions in cities futures, the geographicalinputs I propose are restricted to a utopian view of what is to become of l.isbon.

Study of urban form in Portugal: a comparative analysis of the cities of Lisbon and Oporto

Urban Design International, 2006

The first part of the paper outlines the study of urban morphology in Portugal published during the last 10 years. A small but interesting group of studies of some Portuguese cities was found and will be briefly characterized. The second part of the paper concerns the evolution of the urban form of the two largest Portuguese cities-Lisbon and Oporto-during the 19th and the 20th centuries. A GIS-based methodology was chosen to redesign and interpret all known, available and credible maps produced in these last two centuries. Different periods of urban development of these cities are identified and compared. The evolution of the urban form of Lisbon is better understood by considering four distinct morphological periods. In contrast, the Oporto history urban form only requires the consideration of three periods. Despite these differences, a number of common features in the evolution of these cities have also been recognized and is further explored.

The disintegration of the urban limits of Lisbon in the early 1960’s - Portuguese architectural debate about exclusion and the importance of the historic city

La Città Altra / The Other City, 2018

In the early 1960s, the uncontrolled growth of the suburban areas of Lisbon invading peripheral territory, was destroying the definition of its urban limits. At that moment, a new generation of Portuguese modern architecture, identifies two key-problems in the growth of the city. First, the uncontrolled expansion of its periphery, transformed into a suburb, and second, the permanent destruction of the integrity of the centre, caused by the unqualified replacement of old buildings by new ones. But this debate had two different dimensions – a dimension of urban design and a social one. On the urban design dimension, it was urgent to review some of the principles of modern planning and to recover the permanent urban values of the historic city. But on the social dimension, the architects of the new generation unconditionally adopted the modern principles expressed in the Athens Charter, and demanded the right of the population to housing and to inhabit the city.

The Built Environment of Lisbon Region: Cultural identity and New Uses

This paper aims to contribute to the debate of the built environment revitalization, and to the requalification of old places to new uses, by proposing a methodological approach that is sustained on the value of Cultural Identity, the Typological Process methodology and by questioning the meaning of New Uses. This approach is sustained on a fresh look over the territory that aims to read and to value the cultural aspects of its construction throughout history, with respect to the landscape values and those of the natural resources, by guarantying continuity to its construction, by means of the reinterpretation of the vernacular architecture, and eventually, through the continuation of the Typological Process, contributing to a new critical attitude that, in a proactive manner, and in the emergency of new cultural syntheses leads to a real collective participation in the construction and on the revitalization of the built environment. Finally, by following a brief review of the Portuguese planning process it is introduced a Portuguese planning proposal that bears on the notion of Cultural Identity and questions the New Uses.

PLANNED AND UNTOLD STORY OF THE CITY’S ARCHITECTURE: THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL PLAN FOR THE RIVERSIDE BOUNDARY OF LISBON, PORTUGAL – MATERIALIZED AND REMAINING ASPECTS OF CARLOS MARDEL’S PLAN FROM 1733

Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Heritage Architecture XVI, 2019

Vitrúvio establishes at DeArchitectura the principles of design and port construction to serve the city in nautical, commercial, warlike and architectural terms. Alberti retakes the concept and extends it. As far as we know, Lisbon never possessed, during classical antiquity, a port worthy of that name, as Vitruvius described. The justification for the absence of a port´s structures can be due an exceptional characteristic as the natural anchorage – ships are protected in Tagus even in stormy days, away from the sea. Here only the tides have effect, by the minor winds and curling/ripples, not obliging thus to the design/construction of the port as it happens in other maritime cities. The Tagus is a pleasant cove – “Olisipo”, interior sea. Francisco de Hollanda planned the city in accordance to the river, assuming it as an essential raw material of the locus. The image of the city is strongly linked to the aquatic environment. Tagus’s importance to the city is reinforced by Frei Nicolau de Oliveira in the “Lisbon Book of Greatness” – a strategy relocating peninsula´s capital to Lisbon; citing the Emperor Charles V: “If I had been King of Lisbon, quickly I would be of the world”. Following the words of King Charles V (I of Spain), King Philip II promoted works in view of Tagus’ navigability, intending to link Madrid to the Atlantic. It was up to the architect Carlos Mardel, the delineation of the desires of the Portuguese monarch, King D. João V, to create the “Atlantic-Rome”. The new plan, for the riverside front of Lisbon, redesigned the land-water frontier, suggesting a modern image and new port infrastructures. It was interrupted abruptly by the earthquake in November 1, 1755, and it erased, from the urban history of Lisbon what would be the largest pre-industrial plan for the city – one of the greatest for Europe at the time. Keywords: Lisbon, Carlos Mardel, preindustrial plan, pre-earthquake plan of 1755, riverfront architectures, maritime city planning, water city design.

Transformations of Historic Urban Tissue in Lisbon

2016

Over the centuries, cities developed a variety of processes connected with transformations of urban tissue. Building in historical centres increased its density, up to the stage which resulted in visible reduction of the quality of life. Such changes compelled the escape of the inhabitants to the constantly expanding suburbs. These days, we can observe certain efforts that bring life back to the central areas of the cities. To follow the needs and expectations of the contemporary society, it became necessary to raise the standard of both: the buildings and the space between them. Re-establishing multi-functionality, entering new buildings or infills, and organizing new public and green spaces within the dense city structure are some actions that can be observed. Some of the most interesting and complex are connected with creating voids in the extremely dense areas of the historically formed nucleus of the city. Several examples of this type of intervention will be presented in this ...

TRADITION AND INNOVATION IN THE SCENERY CITY'S ARCHITECTURES: THE IMPACT OF FILIPPO JUVARRA IN CARLOS MARDEL'S 1733 PLAN FOR LISBON'S RIVERFRONT -A WATER-CITY PROPOSED DESIGN FOR THE ENVISIONED "ROME OF THE OCCIDENT"

Seventeenth International Conference on Structural Repairs and Maintenance of Heritage Architecture, 2021

The territory, as it was understood in the medieval period, undergoes a shift of paradigm in the early stages of the modern age. The growing importance of European capitals and city-states, as an expression of the court life of absolutist monarchies, and the advent of the Counter-Reform movement provide urban spaces with diverse moments and events, where architecture plays a decisive role in the assertion of different powers-notably within royal and religious elites. In the early 18th century, the highest power belonged to King João V, who wanted to transform Lisbon into the new "Rome of the Occident" in an effort to seek validation from the religious establishment of Rome. For that purpose, Filippo Juvarra was one of the talented architects brought to Portugal to apply the monarch's ideas. One of the least studied projects is the one signed by Carlos Mardel, which intended to significantly change the image of the city throughout several miles of its riverfront. By employing scenographic strategies from the Baroque period, the proposed plan reveals a very smart hydraulic technique which allows for the blending of the water and the "new city," forming a harmonious combination. The Portuguese model shows that the need to assert Lisbon as the capital of an overseas empire triggers changes in the architecture and the urban scenography, in order to feed new desires and ambitions. Taking into account that the most widespread images of Lisbon are its views from the river, the proposals for the regularization of the riverfront are now seen as an innovative and strategic motivation to recreate the city's image. As heirs of a strong tradition, based on a constructive praxis, engineers, architects, and construction masters develop innovative projects in response to new challenges, which will have considerable relevance in the international context.