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Research Articles

No. 11 (2024): The archives

An Imprint of Water Infrastructures: The Public Washhouses as Spaces of Everyday Life and Fragments of Women’s Work

Submitted
30 April 2024
Accepted
19 May 2024
Published
28 June 2024 — Updated on 17 October 2026

Abstract

This article is an overview of the historical and architectural study, as well as the practice of archiving Porto's public washhouses using sensitive cartography. The historical context of the study is presented, as well as the justification for studying the washhouses from the point of view of aesthetics, typologies and cultural heritage. In Porto, these fragments of women's work in various urban environments are abandoned and in ruins, despite the fact that they are still present in the memories of the inhabitants.

This archive work is gradually being transformed into an artistic, self-ethnographic work of interpretation, mixing the personal and the public, but also serving as a basis for research into architecture and urban planning: how can we preserve the memory of washhouses? This work is part of the feminist historiography of recent years, which aims to recover the presence of working-class women and their history in the public space.

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