My Post Industrial Spaces

Former Industrial Complex, Tomar

Sitting in an island by the river at the city center, it’s composed of historical buildings from different times and industrial functions [flour mill, foundry, olive oil mill, energy central, mini-dam] that underwent a long renovation process, with halts and pauses, so to be reopened in 2016 as a cultural center and industry museum. Prior to the completion of the works, during 2014, I curated a collective exhibition titled The factory is at work [Há trabalhos na Fábrica], as part of Materiality, an European Project. The exhibition occurred during the work of renovation of the industrial spaces, which were open to the public assuming its incompleteness – no longer old industry, not yet a cultural center. The exhibition was anticipated by an artist residency of Os Espacialistas at the flour mills of Mendes Godinho / A Portuguesa, under the renovation process, and therefore offering peculiar conditions, in between a building-site and an industrial museum.

Royal Weaving mill of Tomar

Located along the River Nabão, the old cotton weaving mill lays abandoned for decades, partially demolished to the ground and scavenged for valuable materials (beams, electrical cords and systems, machinery). Even though proudly visible from a distance, presenting its chimney and decorative tiles, the structure is tragically fragile as the illegal demolition and the several fires have damaged the structure and the underground water systems. 

A series of fieldtrips to the factory during the winter of 2011 have led to two research processes. An artist residency with young artist Michael Nussbaumer, who documented and explored the spatial and material conditions of the demolished and ruined spaces. A second research project has started as a recollection of fragments with visible brands and labels found among the debris of the construction materials. The variety of materials – concrete, tiles, bricks, metal, or wood – triggered the interest for a mode of preservation of its post-industrial condition. The materials were treated at the Laboratory of Conservation and Restoration (IPT) and are included in the project titled Post-Materials Archive. Both the visual/photographic project and the material/preservation project were exhibited in several exhibitions.

Former Industrial Complex, Tomar

Sitting in an island by the river at the city center, it’s composed of historical buildings from different times and industrial functions [flour mill, foundry, olive oil mill, energy central, mini-dam] that underwent a long renovation process, with halts and pauses, so to be reopened in 2016 as a cultural center and industry museum. Prior to the completion of the works, during 2014, I curated a collective exhibition titled The factory is at work [Há trabalhos na Fábrica], as part of Materiality, an European Project. The exhibition occurred during the work of renovation of the industrial spaces, which were open to the public assuming its incompleteness – no longer old industry, not yet a cultural center. The exhibition was anticipated by an artist residency of Os Espacialistas at the flour mills of Mendes Godinho / A Portuguesa, under the renovation process, and therefore offering peculiar conditions, in between a building-site and an industrial museum.

Royal Weaving mill of Tomar

Located along the River Nabão, the old cotton weaving mill lays abandoned for decades, partially demolished to the ground and scavenged for valuable materials (beams, electrical cords and systems, machinery). Even though proudly visible from a distance, presenting its chimney and decorative tiles, the structure is tragically fragile as the illegal demolition and the several fires have damaged the structure and the underground water systems.

A series of fieldtrips to the factory during the winter of 2011 have led to two research processes. An artist residency with young artist Michael Nussbaumer, who documented and explored the spatial and material conditions of the demolished and ruined spaces. A second research project has started as a recollection of fragments with visible brands and labels found among the debris of the construction materials. The variety of materials – concrete, tiles, bricks, metal, or wood – triggered the interest for a mode of preservation of its post-industrial condition. The materials were treated at the Laboratory of Conservation and Restoration (IPT) and are included in the project titled Post-Materials Archive. Both the visual/photographic project and the material/preservation project were exhibited in several exhibitions.

Jornal Arquitectos #253 #254

Jornal Arquitectos #253 #254

Jornal Arquitectos (J-A) is once again a paper magazine, combining in the first two printed editions a selection of contents of the first four editions edited for the digital platform, intending to stabilize on an analog support and to contribute to the history of the print collection of the J-A

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New book: Projecting Memory

New book: Projecting Memory

Projecting Memory is a book aiming to trigger, and to keep feeding, interdisciplinary ongoing conversations across the research fields of both memory and space. Ranging stories and memories of specific locations in different countries, from Japan to Turkey, from Spain to Lebanon, among many other, memory affects both disciplinary fields and fields of practice, from architecture to urbanism, from history to political activism, from social intervention to fiction.

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Territory and Community

Territory and Community

Book launch in Winter 2017
The House of Memory of Guimarães is the new cultural center dedicated to the history of Guimarães, to its territory and its community. The permanent exposition of the CDMG is a kaleidoscope of stories and memories installed in the reconverted Pátria Factory and it is distributed by two industrial hangars: Territory and Community.

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