IJUP08 - Universidade do Porto

Touristic Topographies : transversality and authenticity in an
Portuguese context
João Nuno Pinto Marques
Architecture Degree Final Diploma | Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal,
The essay Touristic Topographies is a reflection about the ways that tourism, while activity
that crosses several multidisciplinary fields (where the architecture plays an important
role), develops itself in territorial terms and about the produced effects, either on
environmental levels (built areas) or social levels, that emerges along with its growth.
A first analysis seeks to contextualize the first transitory movements and the social changes
that were at the origin of tourism, along with the respective dynamics and transversalities
that took place in those territories. With basis on the different reasons that took man to
travel by free will and with no economic needs, we are able to observe the evolution of the
tourist profiles through time – pilgrim, traveler, sightseer, vacationer, post-tourist – and its
importance in the definition of the actual touristic industry guidelines.
In a second part, we tried to identify distinct touristic models existents in the Portuguese
context and analyze it according with patterns that include densities, uses, effects and
transversalities produced on the different territories. In this way, we identified five
different major patterns that illustrate the main strategies used by the touristic
managements in terms of urban development: concentration I (coastal lines) concentration
II (traditional cities), nodulation, stimulation and dissemination. However, the used
method does not enclosure or predicts all existent models, as it can not be taken as isolated
objects, attending that this models can derivate one from the others, emerge
simultaneously, coexist in a same place or be developed in different scales. Instead, it is
proposed some action lines and information forms organized and orientated towards the
Portuguese example.
A third part of the essay concerns the aesthetics and the authenticity of the architecture in
the touristic models. The potential of the architecture is analyzed as a touristic atractor
and a reflection is made on the rhetoric in which it is based on, attending that the tourism
is, above all, an economic activity that seeks the profit as the main goal. In these terms, the
role and the theoretical basis of the architecture behind the touristic models is questioned,
attending that the tourism is being developed according to the whims of a globalized
economy, that has contributed to the dilution of identity values and to the profusion of an
aesthetic obtained from instruments as the simulation or the iconization. It is now common
to find a mix of cultures, styles and constructive techniques associated to some touristic
models that contributes to an uncharacterized and anachronic type of architecture in order
to obtain a certain image or thematic.
An alternative option can come out from an interpretation of the real identity, cultural and
historic values according to the reality where they are inserted and through a conscientious
integration of it in the current time. During this transformation process, the architecture can
obtain a very delicate and specific role insuring the authenticity.
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