“The Cultural Landscape of the Alentejo Pyrite”: What’s Next?

In Portugal, the recognition of “Cultural Landscapes” is due to the UNESCO category. Many of the local and regional initiatives aims this classification, which are majority disregarded due to unfulfilled and thus abandoned, resulting in lost opportunities. Understanding the territory as a rhizome in which architectural heritage is the catalysing element, despite its density or its expectant value, is the research’s core. Taking as premise the European and North American proposals and projects of Cultural Landscapes that revitalized ancient industrial areas and their role within a new international paradigm of territorial development and planning, the research was developed from four Alentejo mining sites—Lousal, Aljustrel, S. Domingos and Pomarão—which embody the proposal of the Cultural Landscape of the Alentejo Pyrite. From the common and specific analysis of evolutional, geographical, urban, architectural and heritage contexts, it is presented the structural, classifying and compositional synthesis of the public, semi-public and dwelling spaces, which underlie the proposal’s contexture. This paper reflects upon the future of this body of work from the academic scope to being operative in the public planning sphere and regional/local interventions.