Agricultural support units: Buildings to structure the rural territory

Abstract

From the dovecotes in the northeast mountains to the windmills on the central coast, it is absolutely imperative to resort to vernacular architecture as an integral part of the collective memory that shapes the cultural landscape of Portugal. Prior to the city, before (temporally and spatially) the urban building, and always beyond housing, the agricultural support building constitutes an inevitable legacy in the national built heritage. To understand the Portuguese territory without it, without considering their ethnographic and architectural terms, without perceiving its importance in the critical review of the modern movement, implies refusing a significant part of the foundations on the international recognition of contemporary Portuguese architecture and its relationship with the context (in its physical and cultural dimension). Using the iconic granary (through its basic function, diversity and evolution), this reflection tests a critical itinerary having as parameters the Programme, Context and Time of this typology. According to the methodological organisation proposed in the research project: “Building Typology. Morphological Inventory of Portuguese City”. Somewhere between the recognition of its expiration and the moral (ir)relevance of its Documentation, between the original functional pragmatism and the (f)utility of reinterpretation, between technological inconsistency and cultural sustainability; this text intends to characterise and reflect on the role of this type of heritage in cataloguing and classifying our architectural heritage.