As indústrias criativas como regeneração urbana

: a Rua João Mendes e o Centro de Estudos das Bocas, em Viseu

Abstract

The city is the quintessential space of human activity. This paper focuses on these two players, in a cumulative process of addition. An historical process. It is argued that the city is a reflection of man and his ability to respond to adverse situations and obstacles. But as a result of human invention, the city is not perfect. It encloses many setbacks. One tries to understand, through historical analysis, what are the assumptions that give rise to the difficulties of the urban environment, most particularly the decay of its fabric. One attempts to perceive this process of decline in which their historical town centers, full of identity and memory, are immersed and, then, find strategies to regenerate them. Creativity appears as the model that may participate in this process: the exploration of the capacity of human knowledge and creativity at the service of the physical and social fabric changing. It starts with this premise in an attempt to develop a cross-cutting strategy that maximizes historical city centers into an urban dynamics and consequently creates cohesion between the parts. The investment in the creative industries as a vehicle to operate the urban regeneration aims to combat the ageing population that lives in the historical city centers (attracting the youngest) but also aims to contribute to improve mobility. Elderly people and disabled people (with motor or mental deficiency) are here portrayed as unable to experience the city in its fullness . As an art technique that treats the city, the architecture takes part in these setbacks. The space issue and thow it relates to the individual are at the center of its raison d’être. The principle of this work is the regeneration of the urban fabric decay that, supported by architecture, aims to counter this tendency.

Date of Award	20 Dec 2013
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Isabel Lacximy Neves Furtado Serôdio (Supervisor), António da Silva Ferreira de Carvalho (Co-Supervisor) & Carina Gisela Sousa Gomes (Co-Supervisor)