Habitar a Água, os Lavadouros Públicos do Porto: uma experiência das mulheres na cidade moderna

• Autor(a) principal: Chloé Marie Nadou Darmon
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/133165
• topic: Artes; Arts

This dissertation aims to show an experience of women in the modern city between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, focusing particularly on the public wash-houses of the city of Oporto. The traditional figure of the washerwoman is a strong image linking women to water. The public wash-houses ( lavadouros ) are the spatialization of the condition of women in Southern Europe and in the city of Oporto during the urbanization of the modern city. The emergence of the dichotomy between private and public space deprives women of access to the public space of political life. Hygiene becomes a vital necessity, but public washing-places become spaces which are vectors of diseases and epidemics. The city of Oporto becomes a laboratory for experimenting with the typologies of public wash-houses. Paradoxically, the communal public wash-house becomes a place of control of the woman's body in the urban space. Public wash-houses ( lavadouros ) are potential but neglected spaces. Their process of abandonment coincides with the confinement of women in the domestic sphere, transforming the obsolete public wash-houses from the 1990s onwards. The urban exploration of the city of Porto will allow us to understand contemporary practices and uses and to propose a current cartography. Public wash-houses ( lavadouros ) are key spaces for feminist city-planning in the city of Oporto. In order to reread history and include women in it, the contribution of women's reproductive work in the construction of the city should be emphasized. The reactivation of public wash-houses requires the requalification and valorisation of this tangible Heritage, the public wash-houses, and the immaterial, the practices associated with them. Essential to preserve the memory of women in the city of Oporto, so that the presence of women in the city is not just a whisper.