Utopia or Dystopia ?

The main objective of this work is to question if it's possible, using Utopian Thought, to imagine the return to what we think was once a city, through its urbanity, with the possible cohesion to fulfil the purposes for which it was invented. The problems of dispersion are obvious, from social to environmental, and this manifesto aims to question them.

The study of utopian thought in this work will focus on the city and his problems that arose from the 19th century and the phenomena that motivated his transformation. The problems that have arisen are the result of the modernist concept of city, where so-called historic centres are forgotten and later abandoned, crystallised over time, while the rest of the city has developed, fragmenting links, but always dependent of this centre. The city tends to grow towards the periphery, consuming territory in an excessive way due to a mistaken idea that the best quality of life is disconnected from the city and should be linked to the countryside. The city of Santarém will be the laboratory to research, like in all utopias, the problems mentioned: a typically Portuguese city that once dedicated part of its activity to the River, saw this culture forgotten and the city abandoned with the appearance of the car, the highway and infrastructures that gained a new prominence in the territory. The aim of this utopian thought will be to prepare a return to the City, leaving the suburbs and reinventing its connection to the River. In the end, the invention of the new riverfront will be proposed through strategies for the re-activation of obsolete buildings and spaces, which respond to the needs of the place - developing cultural and mercantile activity. \r\nAs expressed in the title of this project, the aim is to answer a question that covers several areas, from economic to environmental: Is it a possible dream to recycle the city centre that gave rise to cities or are they destined to an eternal crystallization following the current concepts of heritage?