Em Ruína: O território da Estrada da Circunvalação do Porto como última "muralha" da cidade

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to contribute for a reflection about the space of ruins and what they represent nowadays, in the "city" and the territory. We look to position this study in the disciplanary realm of Architecture, by moving away from a more contemplative/turistic view of ruins. In this case, the theme of "ruins" associated to the territory, is reflected in permanent and invisible elements, that together with the main urban tissue make the current urban reality. This are the elements "in ruins", that did not appear from acts of conservation or "mummification", but in fact resulted from urban transformations that came from our own intervention (or lack of) over the territory. Which leads us to question the ways urban planning is practiced and how it can have contributed for the stagnation of determine parts of the territory. This way, what lesson, about the present, can we take from the association of ruins and territory? Considering the big changes suffered by the city of Porto in the last centuries, in terme of density and urban sprawl, we find in Estrada da Circunvalação (ring road) of Porto, an old tax and administrative barrier in which the is a materialization of the theme of obsolescence in the context of the outskirts of town. The association of the theme of ruins to this reality allows us to approach the different processes of urban sprawl and the impact of this infra-estructure may have had in the stagnation of the same territory nowadays. Therefore, as a starting point of this study, we consider Estrada da Circunvalação as more than its infra-estructural function in the traffic, as it also is the "last city wall" of Porto. This border feature allows us to explore the current urban situation, which is made out of a series of conflicts and dualities, like center/suburbs, territory/landscape or frontier/sprawl, putting the theme of "ruins" at the servica of a better comprehension of the big problems featured by the present city. Are we in front of a pathological permanence, that prolonged an urban numbness? Or is it the inevitability of the process of an unplanned urban sprawl? Finaly, with this dissertation we intend to question the meaning of ruptures and "permanences" in the urban context, constructing a reflection about what this interruption in time represents and what is its function and symbolism and moreover its relationship with society and the urban situation.