Urban Morphologies and Public Spaces in the Metropolis of Lisbon

An Instrumental and Methodological Approach in the Framework of an Investigation

Abstract

This article results from an ongoing research whose central theme is developed around public spaces and urban protagonism. An instrumental and methodological framework is presented, which is in an experimental application phase. One of the research hypotheses, supported by the corresponding empirical observation work, tends to illustrate the possible protagonism of the Lisbon Metropolis through the manifestation or emergence of factors leading to a certain social and urban quality of the space under observation. Based on the hypothesis that certain areas are emblematic of the social and territorial transformations and conditioning of the metropolitan configuration, a methodological framework was designed to facilitate the use and articulation of the empirical material resulting from the analysis of concrete public spaces of the Lisbon Metropolis, through different analytical lenses: the metropolitan scale, the urban scale and the local scale. The analytical matrix centered on public space as the basis for the study of urban protagonism (in urban, political and socio-cultural perspectives) is based on four analytical dimensions. A new synthesis of the urban is sought in which the public space is simultaneously the object of analysis and a privileged analytical perspective for the accomplishment of the analytical plans that frame the study of the urban protagonism in public space.