HOUSING OF ANCIEN RÉGIME IN SANTANA S HILL: TYPES AND WAYS OF LIVING. Abstract

Transcription

1 HOUSING OF ANCIEN RÉGIME IN SANTANA S HILL: TYPES AND WAYS OF LIVING Abstract This paper seeks the understanding of Lisbon s housing models of 6-8 th centuries through the analysis of a determined area. Seeing that housing buildings constructed before mid-8 th century are currently the ones at most immediate risk of cease, this study intent was to register and analyse examples inside this timeline. While focused on common housing, all housing buildings are taken in consideration, due to the inseparability of common and erudite housing in Lisbon s organic historical urban tissue. Five types of building of plurifamiliar common housing were identified, regarding their functional distribution of dwellings and vertical accesses. These regular features can help to drawn a strategy of adaptation to modern living standards during a process of rehabilitation, a crucial point considering this work s goal in suggesting ways of living today in spaces build for the past, while keeping their essential character. Methods The process of investigation was divided in three components: theoric research, field work and analysis through comparisons. Field work begun with consultation of archive processes in Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa, in order to list an adequate number of study cases based on the extent of information available. Afterwards, were in order building surveys with direct observation of dwellings and access layouts. The information gathered through these sources were analysed by comparison of possible reconstitutions of the original state of edifices. Housing of Ancien Régime in Santana s Hill

2 . Santana s Hill For purposes of analysis, an area of identical morphological characteristics was drawn in southern Santana s Hill, one of the seven that surround the central settling of old Lisbon. The study area is believed to have been firstly occupied during the late th century seeing, among other factors, that it was included in the area inside the Fernandine Wall of defence of 75. The consolidation of the urban tissue was, though, a slow process. The fact that it was the part of inner city located further away from the river meant a low interest in settlement both for working class and noble families. On the other hand, religious orders found here the needed space for building large complexes, such as convents or schools later transformed in hospitals. Due to progressive settlement, the study area can be divided in three parts: on the beginning of the slope Calçada do Garcia, Travessa de Santana the urban tissue goes back to medieval times and it is still drawn in a mazy Islamic fashion; the first half of Calçada de Santana inside the Wall limit corresponds to a period of expansion around the 6 th century, with rectilinear plots; and the northern half of Calçada de Santana was edified from 8 th century on, resulting in larger plots and buildings, and the consequent increasing number of noble houses and higher-class multi-familiar buildings. The destruction caused by 755 s earthquake resulted on massive re-edification in all the three areas, mostly recovering the previous solutions of edifice, although some experimentation and addition of floors might have occurred. In the 20 th century the demolitions of great part of lower Mouraria to open Martim Moniz square caused the disruption on the organic urban tissue spread between the Castel Hill and Santana Hill. The high density urban quarter of Santana was then isolated in between the largest squares and avenues of Lisbon, becoming a central area that is neither a place of transit nor settling. 2. Housing Typologies and Types One vertical access per plot Multiple vertical accesses per plot Fig. 0 - Scheme of access and dwelling distribution The housing models of the 6 th -8 th centuries are easily recognised for a group of matching characteristics of construction and façade display. Features as the apparent asymmetry in the disposition of openings in common housing buildings, window s and door s wide stone frames or tiled roof slopes parallel to the street are good identifying factors. The use of natural materials is also common ground, being stone walls -, wood stairs and pavements -, and limestone mortar the most used ones. In common buildings were identified three main families of dwelling display logic. These are: the building with one dwelling per floor and lateral continuous one-flight-per-floor staircase; the two dwellings per floor edifice with central stairs; and the long building of modular structure with more than one vertical access [Fig. 0]. 2 Housing of Ancien Régime in Santana s Hill

3 Inside the house, the divisions are almost always planned on two systems: aligned and in front-back. These two planning systems are not connected (a) SOCIAL PRIVATE UTILITY in the number of internal spaces, seeing that there can be found to 5 compartments in both floor plan schemes [fig. 02]. (b) The types are thus identified through overlapping of family building and internal logic of dwelling, producing, among the examples studied in this delimitated area, five types of common housing. (c) SOCIAL PRI- VATE UTILI- TY Building distribution Dwelling inner division Type logic logic (d) Aligned Front/back A B Fig Scheme of found inner space organization possibilities: a) three divisions aligned; b) more than three divisions aligned; c) three divisions in front/ back ; d) more than three divisions in front/back. Aligned C Front/back D Front/back E 0 Fig. 0 - Synthesis scheme. Type A The first identified type belongs to the family of one dwelling per floor and lateral staircase, with aligned divisions. This type has been identified by several authors in different neighbourhoods of historical Lisbon, and is probably the most frequent at city level. In this study it has been represented by 5% of the cases. Type A is characteristic of narrow rectangular plots and clearly an urban solution of house model, as it occupies the least possible length of street front. Therefore, the façade is a slender one, with larger dimensions in height than in width and generally only one opening per floor. In the original form, these examples had two or three floors and were added with new ones after the reconstructions post-earthquake until the beginning of the 20 th century. The original stairs are always of the one direct flight per floor type, but have evolved to different forms with the risen in height of buildings. That evolution was done through the adding of a new perpendicular flight to the first or the implantation of staircases of double flights with landing, from the beginning of the 8 th century on. Unless specified otherwise, earthquake refers to the destroyer earthquake of the st of November, 755, which, due to the immense destruction brought upon Lisbon and southern Portugal, is still imprinted in people s minds and concerns. Fig Standard plan of Type A buildings. Scale :50. Types and ways of living

4 The layout of the dwellings is divided in three or four spaces perpendicularly aligned to the façade, with progressive specialization of functions from front to back. The living room is located next to the main façade, and the kitchen at the back. In between is the private area, with one or two bedrooms. This housing type is the most rigid of all types identified, due to the slenderness of the plot and unmoving position of stairs. Type B As the previous type, type B is one of one-dwelling per floor and lateral staircase building. The difference to type A is on the floor planning scheme, with the divisions being drawn in a front-back approach. The living space remains located at front while service and private areas stand side by side at the back. The internal dividing walls are simple, as it takes only two placed in T shape to define the three compartments. Fig Standard plan of Type B buildings. Scale :200. The plot is, on average, slightly wider than type A s and substantially less deep. This might the reason of the distinction in space distribution, as a short-depth plot could not accommodate the same three functional areas in line disposition. This distribution has the obvious advantage of allowing openings in every division when the aligned disposition has windowless bedrooms. As in the previous type, the private area can be divided in two bedrooms. In the same way the divisions cannot fit if displayed in progression towards the end of the plot, neither can the stairs. The short depth of the plot is one of the reasons for the evolution of the stairs on this type mainly towards a protopombaline 2 system of vertical access, where a corridor parallel to the flight of stairs assures the connection between overlaid flights. Type C Moving to types of two-dwellings per floor and central staircase, type C presents an interior layout based on aligned divisions, being therefore a duplication of type A. Although is known through other studies conducted in Lisbon that the stairs can be of the continuous one-flight-per-floor type, in the examples found on Santana they were always of the above mentioned protopombaline type. Fig Standard plan of Type C buildings. Scale :200. In one of the cases, located on Calçada de Santana , the similarities with the protopombaline building go further than the stairs layout, as it shows two balcony windows each side of the central axis row of windows meant for stairway illumination. Type D Type of two-dwellings per floor with central staircase and inner disposition in front-back. Of the three cases found inside the study area, none have 2 Term coined by Maria Helena Barreiros in Prédios de Rendimento entre o Joanino e o Tardopombalino, Património Arquitectónico, Housing of Ancien Régime in Santana s Hill

5 the same features in stair type or number of inner compartments, indicating perhaps that the construction of this type has spread in a wide period of time, allowing experimentation and transformations to happen. The stairs type go from opposite one-per-floor flights without middle landing, to protopombaline with parallel corridors and opposite flights with middle landing, although in this last case the irregularity of shapes makes it probably an experimental solution from the beginning of the 8 th century. Also the inner divisions grow on complexity, with the first case displaying three divisions with walls in T shape as in type B -, the second four divisions with the partition walls in cross-shape and the third with five compartments, two in front and three in the back. Fig Standard plan of Type D buildings. Scale :200. Type E Type E refers to a short and wide type of building characteristic from rural areas of the city s old suburbs. Without the demographic pressure of the inner-wall city, there was no need for high and slender constructions, and the plots were occupied with buildings spread in width. The result was a modular building, divided in two or more groups of a central stair and two lateral dwellings, with two independent ground floor dwellings. This modular logic was used through different typologies of building in history of Portuguese architecture, such as working-class ensembles of both late 8 th century and late 9 th. Fig Standard plan of Type E buildings. Scale :00. Erudite The four erudite examples analyses belong either to the 7 th century classicist noble house type or the Baroque multifamily building typology. The first kind has developed after the period of Restoration, as a mark of style for old-blood, Bragança house supporter aristocratic families. By adopting a uniform housing style, a sense of class belonging was created, immediately identifying the owner of such house with a family of importance and antiquity. This noble house style is marked with the austerity felt at the period, prevailing Fig Classist palace on Calçada de Santana, nº Scale :00. Types and ways of living 5

6 on simple and dry lines and uniform openings. These would be of the balcony kind in the main floor, displayed above a frieze, and of simple square shape on floors above, when existent. The portal was the only element receiving a more complex and detailed stone work, a mark of individualization inside the style. The austere period of Restoration is followed by the Baroque arrival during the reign of D. João V, hence being also mentioned as Joanino style. Inside the Baroque a new typology of house makes its appearance, the multi-familiar erudite building. Meant for renting, could also host the owner s own apartment in the main floor. It differs from palace typologies on the sense of height and the intricate stone work of openings frames. The example found inside the study area has no differentiation of a noble floor neither in the façade hierarchy nor on floor planning layouts, making it a proper rental building.. Rehabilitation The awareness of the need of preserving the city centres, that came from the failure of the model of unsustainable expansion towards the periphery, is nowadays implanted and rehabilitation programs are slowly coming to life. Nevertheless, these processes can only be efficiently implemented if, and only if, they are based on correct knowledge about the items where its intervention will be held, that is to say, the historical centre and all its elements. First, it should be clear what and where is the city centre that matters to be preserved. Today the heritage classifications are mainly made upon individual buildings, and to lower extent, their surroundings, with the recognition, in recent years, of two compact neighbourhoods as heritage items in their whole. These politics result not only in a profusion of unclear rules and legislation to be applied inside a fairly small area, but also leave substantive grey areas of low or inexistent protection inside of what is considered to be the historical centre and meaning that it can happen that two equal buildings standing side by side receive different levels of protection. Second, the heritage politics cannot be imposed by the authority upon owners and residents. Their collaboration must be sought and it would greatly help to dissipate owners antagonism towards the City Hall if rules and constrictions of re-building inside the centre were clear and equal for all. Conservation works, although compulsory by law, should be encouraged and simple rules of maintenance should be passed on the population. In matters of housing adaptation, there are two main issues regarding the 6 th -8 th century house today: the lack of proper sanitary installations and small area of dwellings. Both were approached during the 9 th and early 20 th century by the addition of a WC in a balcony behind the house and over the backyard. Today this solution is criticized for damaging natural ventilation and Baixa Pombalina and Bairro Alto. 6 Housing of Ancien Régime in Santana s Hill

7 lighting, and new WC are being built by the kitchen to allow plumbing and drain tubes to be located at one area. Also, divisions without natural light are used for this function or as storage space. More privacy between compartments is sought by attempts of implementing halls or corridors and area enlargement by joining two dwellings in a house. 4. Conclusions With the developed investigation was possible to achieve three main goals: the register of examples of pre-pombaline constructions and ways of living together with their adaptations through posterior needs of housing; the identification of types of common housing, showing a pattern of rules followed even outside erudite architecture; and the verification of adaptability features, indicating the strong possibility of rehabilitation with maintenance of essential characteristics. Five types of common housing were identified, regarding the positions and logic of vertical access inside the building lateral, central and multiple - and distribution and inner layout of dwellings divisions aligned on in front/ back. Types A and B appear to be the earliest types, being clear solutions of urban housing. Types C and D are direct evolutions of types A and B, by duplication of dwellings two per floor and therefore later types. Type E corresponds to a modular type of rural influence, used in areas of low urban density. Type A is at the same time the most frequent type to be found in the area and the most rigid in its functionality, making it the hardest type to adapt to modern living standards in rehabilitation processes. This investigation hopes to contribute with relevant data to the future development of correct strategies of rehabilitation of housing in historical centres while adapting it to modern living standards. These strategies must be drawn according to the type of building seeing that different characteristics in dimensions, dwelling logic or inner division will necessarily require different solutions. Moreover, if the intent of preservation of the whole historical centre is one to take ahead, it should be of use a clarification regarding its own boundaries and status. Nowadays different heritage classifications are made by different administrative entities, making the rules of protection very unclear. It is believed that having the same level of classification upon the whole historical centre would contribute to its effective protection. For a full understanding of the pre-industrial common house typology, the results obtained here should be read along other data collected by different authors in other areas of Lisbon s historical centre. Types and ways of living 7