Heritage, landscape and traditional building materials in the Almada territory

Abstract

The geographical location of the municipality of Almada determines a set of natural, geological and biological conditions, which through human action generated the formation of different units of cultural landscape, which characterized the territory until the end of the 19th century. Both the materials, collected locally and used in construction, as well as the buildings that we consider heritage elements, constituted an integral part of the landscape. In this sense, each landscape unit reflects different ways of building, inhabiting and living, associated with different socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Therefore, it is considered that the built heritage also refers to the memory of a landscape that has since been transformed.