Status of Historical Buildings Conservation: ICT Method Results in Caneiras Village

Abstract

Good examples of preservation of vernacular architecture buildings are still an exception, whether as iconic and picturesque evocation, translated in a historic revival for tourist attraction, or in museums, neighbourhoods or fishing villages. But, in the majority of the cases, the vernacular architecture of river banks has been subjected to a rapid and significant disappearance, with the irreversible loss of a unique cultural, architectural and environmental legacy, weakening the sense of place, the identity of local communities with their territories and the cultural heritage of the countries.

This problem is not an exception in Portugal, where the forgotten heritage comprises historical structures corresponding to wooden stilt-houses, represented in small villages along Tagus river banks. This legacy has its roots in a migratory movement of a fishing community called the Avieiros, started in the 1860s, coming from the central west coast of the Atlantic to along Tagus river. However, the decline of fishing activities, the search for new sources of income, initially in the crops along the fertile region, and later in cities, the vulnerability of wooden buildings, and the absence of spatial planning policies or building preservation guidelines, has led to a decay in their transformation processes with the disappearance or abandonment of almost all these villages and their buildings. Nowadays, there are only five remaining Avieiras villages, which totals less than 90 buildings and about 300 inhabitants so far, Caneiras is the biggest. They are the only existing examples of river bank vernacular architecture in Portugal as urban settlements. Therefore, this article presents the results of an ICT (information and communication technologies) method application to the evaluation of status of wooden still-houses conservation in Caneiras, in order to highlight preservation and enhancement strategies.