POR1FIO - The Projet


The project POR1FIO is an interdisciplinary research initiated in 2021, financed by national funds, through the Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (FCT), under the R&D unit Centre for Technology, Restoration and Art Enhancement - TECHN&ART, of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, with the reference UIDB/05488/2020.

This project focuses on a very residual part of the industrial assets of Companhia Nacional de Fiação e Tecidos de Torres Novas (CNFTTN) that it was possible to preserve and that are currently held by the Municipality of Torres Novas. The project aims to study the existing estate of this factory, organizing and documenting the different types of materials and considering their interpretative potentialities. The adoption of the Creative Conservation methodology on the industrial heritage of the CNFTTN, aims to contextualize the remaining materials and find a way to return to the community this heritage.

 
 
 
 
The historical and documentary research on the CNFTTN, the inventory of assets, the photographic record and the definition of a representative set of the estate will be the basis for the design of a heritage education tool, the "Construtor de Memórias", which will allow cultural mediation actions to be carried out with the community.

With its target public in formal (schools) and non-formal (homes and associations) learning contexts in the municipality of Torres Novas, this project seeks intergenerational dialogue, developing the awareness and sensitivity of those involved in heritage preservation and its role in the construction of cultural identity. Since this identity is constantly being updated, as it is directly linked to memory, an approach of continuously updated reconstruction of the past and its framework is envisaged. Thus, the cultural mediation actions foreseen reject the models based on the assimilation of knowledge based on the traditional linear narrative style, receptive and passive, in favour of the promotion of the cognitive capacities of the participants. An interactive communication model will be sought based on the principle of active participation and taking into account the constructivist perspective that defines the subjects as active agents in the construction of interpretations based on their previous knowledge, experience and memories. The planned actions will allow multiple approaches and trajectories, giving participants the possibility to make choices, dialogue and share knowledge. The community involvement, namely through the school community, intends to integrate in an innovative and creative way the factory's estate in a context of social memory activation, at a time when 10 years have passed since its closure.

This project will allow the remaining factory assets to be intervened upon and documented and the local community to contribute to the future solution and to be an aggregator of the city's collective memory. In this context, the significance of the conservation of these industrial assets lies in their value as an educational object that supports their conservation intervention.

This project also aims to disseminate the methodology of Creative Conservation developed under the Laboratory of Conservation and Restoration of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (LCR.IPT) in communities with strong industrial nature, nationally and internationally. The results obtained, but, essentially, the methodology applied to the (creative) conservation of the estate, intend to generate the opportunity to look in an innovative way to a diversified set of goods, in which the heritage value is not always recognized, but the meaning as collective memory (supported by immaterial values) in the community is very present.