Refurbishment of Cabido Facilities / Carlos Castanheira & Clara Bastai

Curated by Matheus Pereira
CATHEDRAL, RESTORATION, EXTENSION • OPORTO, PORTUGAL
Architects : Carlos Castanheira, Clara Bastai
Year : 2015
Photographs : Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
Team : Pedro Carvalho, Eliana Sousa, João Figueiredo, Fernanda Sá, Rita Saturnino
Projeto De Estabilidade:Paulo Fidalgo, Eng. Civil, HDP Gabinete Projectos. Engenharia Civil, Lda.
Projeto De Instalações:Eng. Pedro Nunes, Diametro & Cálculo Eng. Ldª
Date : 2008 – 2015
City : Oporto
Country : Portugal

Textual content description supplied by the architects. I believed I knew the Cathedral in Porto. In my First 12 months of architecture we went over to attract it. From exterior, from inside. The worst of it was the Cloister, filled with geometry, full of various views. Nonetheless, it was nothing to check with the round cloister of the Serra do Pilar monastery, with its unimaginable views, which we additionally tackled as a part of our faculty work.

This gave us a style for drawing. A style and a necessity for it. Drawing is at all times a help for concepts, a solution to take a look at them and it fairly often leads us to discard them.

Certainly one of our lecturers was Grade, Zé Grade, who used to and nonetheless lives within the neighborhood, within the oldest home in Porto, or not less than the one with the oldest façade, in Beco dos Redemoinhos. It was additionally there that we got the unhealthy information about considered one of our colleagues. One thing that at all times remained in our reminiscence, or not less than in mine.

I went again typically, on Saturdays, to the Vandoma Market, as a vacationer, or accompanying vacationers and to go to the Casa dos Vinte e Quatro, a mission by Fernando Távora, who was additionally a trainer in that 12 months. However by no means once more to attract. Which is a pity, as a result of the place deserves it. When the cleric of the Cathedral referred to as me in, I entered by way of the principle door, which was camouflaged by refurbishment work. I took within the darkness and the sunshine of the Nave, handed on to the Cloister, visited the Chapels, and entered the Vestry: the grandiosity, the arcades, the faint frescoes, the sunshine. The pointless pink carpet. Then, a fearful: what would you like from me?

A door was opened and with out leaving the cathedral we moved on to a special world. A world that appeared to me to be rural, however a poor high quality rural, decrepit. In between the volumes of the Church, the Vestry, the Beco dos Redemoinhos, the Guerra Junqueiro Museum and the Choir building, there may be one other world. A world of assorted buildings, of successive reconstructions and the conspicuous presence of the refurbishment works carried out by the division of Nationwide Buildings and Monuments, begun by the Estado Novo in 1927 and concluded in 1939.

The patio was as soon as the Vestry. It was as soon as the treasury of the Cathedral however now not is. It’s now the “Claustra Velha”, regardless of being newer than the Cloister, having over time acquired the identify of “previous”. The areas are a labyrinth, chaotic, full, untidy, improvised. They’re used for servicing and storing essentially the most unimaginable issues. Good issues, centuries previous, alongside out of date and misplaced plastics. After wandering round misplaced, I walked up a stairs behind the organ, that had been eaten away by time. I went from there to the balcony, with its low balustrade that exaggerates the dimensions of the organ, and on to the frescoes by Nicolau Nasoni. With nobody to see it, he naughtily graffitied his identify and sayings to mark out his territory.

The view is magnificent, surprising. I climbed as much as the Treasury, walked round on the roof of the cloister, and scrambled over that of the Vestry, in an effort to have a greater look and attempt to perceive all of it. The difficulties multiplied. So, I didn’t know the Cathedral in spite of everything. The Cleric, who’s answerable for the administration of the Cathedral, had, on the premise of a mission by Fernando Távora, given up his personal lodging for the good thing about a room to deal with the Treasury and for customer’s entry routes.

The calls for on a building just like the Cathedral of Porto, these days go properly past these of non secular worship. There are the guests, vacationers, teams of vacationers, cultural actions and extra. The backing to all this, or logistics as is these days the time period, is both non-existent or exists within the confusion of areas hidden behind that door within the Vestry.

• What I’m requested to offer to resolve these points are:
• A gathering house for all of the members of the Chapter.
• An area for the officers and guards.
• An area for the processes of cleansing, upkeep and care of clothes, objects and ornaments.
• Service bogs.
  The placement for all that is to be saved throughout the confines of the run down space. Fortunately. Easy, however tremendously tough. We spoke with the folks accountable within the Institute that holds custody of the building, with the architect Angela Melo, the at all times current skilled with a ardour for these partitions. We spoke with the individuals who work there and with the individuals who dwell there. We spoke with the archaeologists. We learn the whole lot that was accessible.

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