Preserving Collective Memory through Photography

Abstract

The article focuses on the role of the “Survey on Regional Architecture in Portugal” in 1955 and its effects on contemporary Portuguese architecture. A photographic survey organizes and indexes a group of buildings with precise criteria, allowing a general panorama. In fact these built-environment, large-scale archives play an important role in heritage preservation. In the 1930s, an interesting phenomenon gathered architects who, although committed to the modern movement and enthusiasts of industrial progress, showed a growing interest in vernacular buildings and settlements. Some of these architects became photographers, attentive to a pre-industrial world that was endangered, to record timeless architecture and expose new aesthetic values. This interest generated several movements centered on an appreciation of regional architecture. Along with nostalgia, there stood out the feeling that there were still many lessons to be drawn from these threatened vernacular structures.