EDITORIAL

 

Editorial

 

Pedro CostaI

[I ]ISCTE-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. e-mail: pedro.costa@iscte.pt.

 

The thematic dossier of this 34th issue of CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios is structured under the title “ART TIME CITY, on the temporality of urban intervention”. It is organized by Andrea Pavoni and draws upon an open call for papers which was launched in the aftermath of an homonymous workshop which was held in May 2016, in Barreiro, in the scope of “Contemporaneidades do Espaço Industrial”, an event associated to DINÂMIA'CET-IUL's project ARTSBANK. The dossier has five original contributions, which are prefaced by an introductory article delivered by its editor.

Andrea Pavoni's preface brings together in a quite compelling way the purposes and the framework of this work, as well as the main propositions of each of the five articles included in the dossier and the connections between them, rendering a wider explanation about it in this editorial redundant. The dossier is initiated by Ricardo Campos' text “O espaço e o tempo do graffiti e da street art“, which, while focused on the case of graffiti, in a way frames the discussion held in the following texts, as it explores the different articulations between time and space in the practice of graffiti and street art debating how the spatio-temporal opportunities and constraints contribute to the artistic gesture and to the final artwork. Marta Traquino's text “As sementes foram plantadas à mão”, revisits an iconic public art work (Wheatfield - A confrontation, Agnes Denes, 1982), reflecting on its contemporary “reactivation” and the dynamics of instrumentalization behind it, as well as the way they imply urban change. The relation with gentrification dynamics is also present, in a different perspective, in “Participation in urban interventions: Meaning-effects and urban citizenship”, by Sebastiano Citroni, which focuses on the bottom-up participation and meaning-effects of events included within a complex urban intervention in a Milan's rapidly changing area, evidencing the importance of territorialization processes and of temporality of urban interventions as conditions to an effective practice of the right to city in contemporaneity. Community embedded dynamics are also at the centre of Luisa Alpalhão's analysis in “Short-stories about time in the making of participatory projects”, challenging the rhetoric on participatory projects as presumed means to exert democratic values and to promote a fairer way to create built environment, from five short stories that occurred during the development of different “participative” urban interventions aiming at the production of shared public spaces, developed by Urban Nomads atelier. Finally, this set of reflections on temporalities and territoriality of urban intervention is concluded with the debate over another illustration of a recent artistic intervention. In “Os Nossos Sonhos Não Cabem Nas Vossas Urnas: Um Laboratório de Experimentação Artivista, Rui Mourão bring us a description and discussion about his provocative 2014 intervention-occupation at Museu do Chiado, Lisbon.

In parallel to this thematic dossier, and as usual, other five articles compose the permanent open call articles section of this journal, in this 34th issue.

“O Vale da Amoreira enquanto espaço socialmente criativo, ou a suburbana arte da (in)visibilidade?”, by André Carmo and Maria João Freitas, leads us to Vale da Amoreira, one of the three “Bairros Críticos” (Critical Neighbourhoods), a Portuguese government initiative, and analyse its process of affirmation as socially creative space. The article scrutinizes the (pre)existent conditions in Vale da Amoreira to explain the centrality of arts, the kind of social innovation that was promoted and the role played by the Artistic Experimentation Centre, assessing the development and implementation of this programme in this particular case. The authors argue that, as a socially creative space, Vale da Amoreira is an experience of socio-spatial transformation, qualification and revalorization that, not being a flop, was also far from a success.

In “Hay otro mundo y está dentro de éste. Ciudades y pertenencia en el movimiento de los focolares”, Agustina Adela Zaros brings us a discussion about the forms of production of meaning, geographic expansion and continuity of the Focolare Movement, focusing mainly in Argentina and Italy. The author examines two “citadels” of this religious group that can be seen as a link between the structure and organization of the ecclesial movement and at the same time as places of utopian projection in the pursuit of holiness. Acknowledging the importance of the balance between locally lived communities and the well-connected international networks in which they are inserted, the author reflects about new geographies crossed by the religious dimension in a group that maintains an holistic approach regarding its members.

Departing from an architectural perspective and from the concrete example of the interventions in public space within the first phase of the project of the Oporto underground (in Portugal), Rodrigo Coelho presents us “A tectónica da infra-estrutura: construir o espaço público na cidade alargada”. This article stresses the importance that the act of designing and building public space, and hence of urban project, still has today, particularly in the context of the “enlarged city”. The author argues that the first phase of the “Metro do Porto” project confirms the potential of these infrastructures as structuring elements of more dispersed urban areas, while also enabling the identification of a new tectonic for the whole metropolitan area.

Mobility infrastructures are also at the centre of the analysis brought by Cédrick Gomes da Silva and Sérgio Benício de Mello in “Recife, Veneza Brasileira: repensando a mobilidade urbana a partir de seus rios”. Assuming that, in recent decades, rivers, canals and estuaries have been recovered as alternatives to the dystopian context of contemporary cities, the authors discuss how they can challenge the hegemonic model of individual private mobility and bring social, cultural and environmental benefits to urban space, upon the case of Recife, seen as the “Brazilian Venice” for the potential offered by its several rivers. The authors analyse a project that aims to clean up the waters of its rivers and transform them into corridors for public transport, both at micro and macro levels, focusing especially on the social value aspects linked to the planning and sustainable management of urban mobility.

Finally, and also for the Brazilian context, Alexandre Matiello, Ana Villela, Guilherme Bruno and Giselle Azevedo present us “Identificação de novos territórios educativos na escola infantil em tempo integral: a contribuição de alguns instrumentos de avaliação da percepção ambiental”. This article explores the use of three instruments of environmental perception for the evaluation of school space: Walkthrough, Visual Mapping and Memory Game, all adapted to the urban environment and to the school setting. The contribution of these instruments of environmental perception in the identification of new educational territories in full-time nursery school is discussed drawing upon the case of a municipal school in Erechim (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), assuming the contribution of other spaces and agents in the formative process, and highlighting the potential of architecture and urbanism, and the way they deal with the city, to reveal the educational possibilities of spaces outside school. 

Closing this 34th issue of CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios, in the book review section, Sónia Alves introduces us João Queirós' book No Centro, à Margem. Sociologia das intervenções urbanísticas e habitacionais do Estado no centro histórico do Porto (Edições Afrontamento, 2015). The book, which draws upon part of the author's PhD Dissertation, discusses the origins, structure and social consequences of urban and housing interventions promoted by the State in the historic center of Oporto over the past 60 years, bringing us a critical perspective over many of the policies and practices which have been developed in the housing and urbanism domains in Portugal in this period.

Pedro Costa

Editor