Lugares de memória

Critical studies on the appropriation by the community of the heritage of the historic downtown of Vassouras a leading urban-landscape in Rio de Janeiro State. Protected by IPHAN, the colonial-era town was the result of the economic boom generated by coffee plantations in the region. "Often we say that a particular building has great historical importance. Right now, the iconography and the registration documentation appear to reaffirm that relevance, it. Then scholars write treaties and articles about. We have only one certainty: the building is important because it tells the story of another time, the details of its construction, and the way of life of its former residents. However, today, because of their discreet presence and silence they are slowly losing their attraction and charm. Disappearing before our eyes, like in an eclipse, covered in part by ignorance, by the neglect of institutions that holds it, but also by the daily standardized, which prevents them to stand out and re-discovered. It is therefore in the present and not the past, that starts the process of distancing from the community that surrounds the building, in the age of its construction, sentenced to disappear completely into oblivion. Understanding urban and built heritage, as "Places of memory", through its details, its nuances and the perception of its aesthetic value, always current (because the beautiful doesn't age), rather than any scientific treatise is the path of this reunion with our past."--Verso Cover.