Mapping the Landscape and Heritage Thresholds between Modern and Rural Imaginaries

Abstract

This visual essay examines mapping as a methodological tool to understand the thresholds between rural and modern imaginaries. Addressing ongoing urban expansion and shifting forms of inhabitation, the research reflects on how the interplay between ruralism, and modernism can inform architecture and conservation practices. Malagueira Plan[i], designed by Álvaro Siza in Évora, is used as a case study to test mapping as a means of collecting and interpreting relationships between landscape, architecture, and community. The resulting drawings[ii] are conceived not as final representations but as visual experiments, tracing how rural identity, urban processes, and social dynamics intersect. In this perspective, architecture is understood as a continuous dialogue with nature, heritage, and collective memory.

[i] Conceived after the 1974 Revolution and within the framework of the SAAL housing programme, Malagueira challenges traditional boundaries, engaging with both vernacular rural traditions and the demands of modernity.

[ii]These results stem from the author’s previous research, developed in the master’s thesis Ruralism and Modernism: A New Narrative for Good Practices in Malagueira (2025). That work employed mapping as a critical method to investigate Álvaro Siza’s Malagueira Plan, combining literature review, fieldwork, and spatial analysis to trace how modernist legacies and rural imaginaries intersect across time and scale

Keywords: ruralism, modernism, landscape transformation