Articulação entre os programas arquitectónicos e a prática da conservação preventiva em Portugal: análise de quatro estruturas museológicas

This paper aims to present a previous analysis on the issue of compatibility between Portuguese museum architecture and the Preventive Conservation practice applied to collections. The study was conducted from the educated visitor point of view, namely in the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage topics, and it was focused mainly in the Permanent Exhibition areas and in the buildings interpretation. We included four architectonic museums design typologies and we tried to find out how each architectural organization suits to the collections which houses, the relationships that are established with collections, or how the design could improve the best practices in the Preventive Conservation area. We discuss the concept of Preventive Conservation as thought to be integrated in the architectonic program basic design in order to assimilate the building as the most important structure with the greatest impact in the stability/protection of the collections, since this issue regulates all behaviors applicable both to the museological objects scale and the interface with the public. For this study we selected four museums with regional impact in the North of Portugal: the Regional Museum of Archaeology D. Diogo de Sousa, the Museum Treasure of Braga´s Cathedral, the Aveiro Museum and the Grão Vasco Museum, in Viseu.