PONTECESURES
changing the village through protagonist participation
ReCOGNIZING Pontecesures
“A good urban acupuncture would be one that enables everyone to know their city. How many people, in reality, truly know their own city? It’s hard to respect what you don’t know. But how can you respect your city if you don’t understand it? Draw your city. […] But how can you improve your city if you don’t even know it well? What do you do for it, if you’re not even able to draw it? That’s the crux of the matter.”
Jaime Lerner
To understand how the inhabitants, both current and future, perceive their town, we will use the following strategy: we set off ‘adrift’ with a large golden frame, so that during our wandering, we frame those urban elements that are important to them (an experience based on the work of O’Grady). Who have been the protagonists of this ‘A Vila do Mañá’ experience? On this occasion, during their wandering, they have reDISCOVERED places in their town, perhaps forgotten ones.
With ‘A Vila do Mañá’, the village in which they live is not an abstract idea, nor a series of small partial images; it begins to be understood as a much more complex and expansive environment, bringing us closer to the notion of habitat: the space that transcends its physical location in a territory where we fulfil our needs, establishing relationships with others and with the environment, both natural and built; involving processes in which it transforms, but in which we are also transformed.
1 Town Hall. César Portela. 2 Library House of Culture. 3 Market Square. 4 Church of San Xulián do Requeixo. 5 Lamprey. 6 “Corrillo bajo el paraguas”. Carlos Maside. 7 Infesta Fountain. 8 Xacobeo Marker. 9 Street art “I Feira automóvil de Ocasión”. DocToy. 10 San Xulián Cross. 11 Lamprey House. MMASA. MUÑIZALFAYA and Carlos Besada. 12 Street art “Primeira liña ferroviaria”. DocToy. 13 “A Curuxa” Washhouse. 14 Magán Chimney. 16 Celtic Pottery. 17 Celtic Pottery Figure. 18 Carreiras Cross. 19 Porto Granary 1. 20 Parish Church of Pontecesures. 22 Pino Manso Viewpoint. 23 Porto Granary 2. 25 Lamprey. 26 Condide Granary. 27 Stone Car. 28 Lady’s House. 29 A Serva Fountain and Washhouse. 30 Street art “Escola da ponte”. Lidia Cao. 31 Cornide Granary. 32 Pontecesures Station. 33 House with Canzorros. 34 Self-Portrait. Carlos Maside. 35 Lamprey. 37 Grobas Fountain and Washhouse. 38 Personal Caricature by Raimundo García “Borobó”. 39 Pazo da Cova. 40 Alfolí (Tobacco Revenue Warehouse). 41 Porto Cross. 42 Lamprey. 43 House of Tiles. 44 Bridge over the Ulla River.
Colour your village
The village or city in which we are working, transformed into a game board, a laboratory of experimentation where children and teenagers can act from a new point of view.