Casa da Memoria, Guimarães, Portugal – ECC 2012

Architectes: Miguel Guedes, José Carlos Melo Dias
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: José Carlos Melo Dias, Andrade Pereira

Located 350 km from Lisbon, Guimarães has been hardly known in modern-day Europe so far. In 2012 this town was a European Cultural capital besides Maribor. From an architectural aspect the most exciting intervention was its Casa da Memoria, the House of Memory – which has been converted from the former Pátria factory. Made up of pavilions, this complex is one of the most beautiful structures of the town’s cultural heritage, although it has been vacant and in deteriorated conditions. In the wake of the team of designers managed by Miguel Guedes the past of the town was successfully preserved whilst making the building a scene of communal creativity: it has become a culture centre where history and local identity are closely associated with the everyday life of people living here. Designers joined the pavilions of Pátria factory once detached and created a new pedestrian street right in the middle to directly connect the town’s fabric with the industrial area abandoned so far.