IJUP08 - Universidade do Porto

The Pombais (pigeon houses) in the northeast Transmontano
(northeast of Portugal)
Mafalda Matias 1 , Teresa Fonseca, PhD Arch 2
1 Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal.
2 Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal.
Among the vernacular forms of architecture to be found in the Portuguese northeast region
of Trás-os-Montes, the “Pombais” (pigeon houses) are a paradigmatic case of a threatened
edified patrimony as a unique and synthetic expression of the common sense of utility,
present in almost all country settlements. By using the resources available and identifying
lands of poor economy, this culture offers us magnificent examples of the wise
combination of objectives and assets. Hermetic, sober, austere, ornamental, ornamented
also, made of schist or granite, with tile or slate, they all seem to have the only function of
providing an address to birds – the pigeons. The “Pombais” belong to the architecture that
is non-inhabited by humans yet they evidence an ancestral and only practice of
sustainability. They are sophisticated objects of study capable of sustain an investigation in
this special matter.
Given the scarce information regarding these constructions this investigation develops in
different ways - from the bibliographic research to the search of specific information
gathered from the real samples of the “Pombais” through the creation of technical records
for the different typologies completed in the field with the help of the metric, the GPS, and
the camera and military maps, the use of drawing, the interview with qualified and
specialised entities and with property owners and local inhabitants, alive testimonies of the
popular wisdom, the participation in team exercises of direct action on the object of study.
This empirical work allowed a rigorous gathering of the constructive, shaping and
architectural characteristics of the “Pombais”, elements that allowed the defence of an
architectural type with the potential to be followed, innovated, updated or updatable and,
most important of all, published as a model of sustainability. We verify that to be
operative, an architecture must adapt to the geographic, social and cultural characteristics
of the environment, solving positively to the possible contradictions between the local and
the universal. This investigation contributes also to register these constructions in the
discipline and scientific areas of architecture as well as in the architectural and cultural
patrimony of our country.
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