The Interpretation of the Site as a Repository of Active Memory the Lesson of a Master and Some Applied Design Experiences

Thinking about the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings and sites, the importance of the figure of the “father” of the Porto School, Fernando Távora, emerges, both in terms of theoretical thinking and in terms of design experimentation. In his thinking, the search for consonance between forms and circumstance should be practiced through knowledge of the contemporary context, of different geographical realities and of the past, with the aim of recognizing the relationship between forms and life. The continuity of the space is an important value to be developed; space is in “permanent transformation”, therefore the design of the new should continue, seeking to innovate. The paper begins by identifying Távora’s attitude in the field of rehabilitation, based on the principle of reciprocity, and proceeds to illustrate a sequence of interventions on the built environment carried out by the TA Lab section (composed by Sara Riboldi and Carlotta Torricelli) of the Torricelli Associati architectural practice over the last fifteen years, all dedicated to the theme of heritage reconversion. Through these experiences, the principle of the imagination of the new is affirmed in the continuous confrontation with the reality of the present and with history as an active matter of design, through a conscious process of rewriting that defines new relationships between site and theme, be-tween artifice and nature.