(Un)changing Landscape. Architecture and landscape in the Alto Douro Wine Region: memory for the future

Abstract

The cultural landscape of the Alto Douro Wine Region is a space with challenges in the management for the present and the future. The rural life mythification like a depository of the pure values and the architecture vernacular nostalgic promotes tensions between tradition and modernity and it is a challenge in the heritage preservation field. Our proposal is analysing the relationship between the development of a “heritage-landscape” concept and the development of contemporary architecture projects. The starting point reflection is about the valorisation of the cultural landscape of the Alto Douro Wine Region for the development of the territory and this contribution for the development of contemporary wine architecture in Douro Valley, between 2001 and 2011, as a factor for tourist activities and de valorisation of the territory.