The Casa da Memória building is located on a central area of the city of Guimarães, in an old industrial building, the Pátria factory. This city has an ancient culture, strongly connected to the material and immaterial historic memory. To aid in the preservation of such a rich heritage, a reference center for culture, history and local identity was created, the Casa da Memória. This building operates both as means of preservation of this city’s cultural heritage as well as a place for creative production firmly connected to the city’s center. This building adds a very different cultural space to the city of Guimarães.
The architectural solution unites the Pátria factory’s group of industrial buildings: a newly created pedestrian path that blends into the existing urban fabric crosses the vacant industrial spaces. By creating a new pedestrian path through the building’s outdoor space, a new fluid crossing of the urban fabric is generated, shortening routes through the city. A new square is created, a public space that evokes one’s sensorial memory, by using water, vegetation and the remaining structure of the roofing of a demolished part of the building. This outdoor space can be used as a public extension for events happening inside the building.
Inside, the old industrial building now houses spaces devoted to creative production, and exhibition of the important heritage of the city of Guimarães.
By keeping its original form, the set evokes the memory of the old industrial spaces of the city.
