SHORES: A research project
- Autores: Susana Lobo
- Localización: La modernidad marítima: arquitecturas e infraestructuras del paisaje litoral, 1925-1975 : Actas XIII Congreso Docomomo Ibérico ,A Coruña, 22-26 de octubre de 2025 / coord. por Fundación Docomomo ibérico, 2025, ISBN 978-84-09-77104-2, págs. 178-187
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
-
Resumen
Seaside holiday residential settlements are one of the most singular expressions of modernity. Gathering inone single location relevant examples of holiday houses, these summer retreats are threatened today by thechange in vacation patterns emerging from evolving social practices. The absence of a common awarenessof the historic value of these settlements, while testimonies of a certain lifestyle and of a certain era, as wellas the lack of comprehensive surveys on their built legacy, has allowed for the indiscriminate transformationof the environments originally planned for. Environments where the balance between constructed elementsand the natural setting has always been a distinctive factor and currently is being subverted by suburbandevelopment models and contemporary tourism speculation. For their unique character, we advocate theadoption of safeguarding measures to be applied to these urban structures. The preservation argumentbecomes more pressing if we consider the limited number of existing case studies. In Portugal, only 4 canbe elected – Rodízio, São Pedro de Moel, Ofir and Moledo do Minho. Established during the post‑war prosperityperiod, these settlements condense the aspirations and taste of an elite open to new cultural values,working as rehearsal laboratories for architects to test new languages, concepts and materials, applied tosummertime more relaxed and informal living. It is this experimental rapport allied to their singular naturalsurroundings that makes these seaside holiday residential settlements and their architectures “out of theordinary”. Based on the 2011 UNESCO’s General Conference 36th session Recommendation, the main goal ofthe SHoReS research project, submitted to the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) inMarch 2024, was the assessment and classification of Rodízio, São Pedro de Moel, Ofir and Moledo doMinho as Modern Historic Urban Landscapes and the subsequent creation of a general regulation for thepreservation and future development of these settlements. Although considered both timely and potentiallyan original contribution to knowledge, the project was deemed not eligible for funding based on the adequacyof resources, in view of the failure to submit support letters from the involved City Councils, and on theeconomic and sociocultural impact of the proposed actions.
