As the collective memory being the engine of a community, the Vilacondense Authority has understood that it needed to pursue the initiative of building a space with the potential to reunite, research and communicate the various meanings of memory belonging to the Vila do Conde territory.
Combining the abilities of the Municipal Archive and the Central Core of the Museum, the Memory Centre, designed in order to work in the beautiful building of the S. Sebastião House, resulted in a restructuring plan and the creation of two new bodies, doubling thus the existing area. The building that, from a century ago, meant a centrality in the culture of our county, firstly by the hand of the play right Jorge Faria, secondly by the intervention of the city which installed there the old part of the Library and Municipal Archives, will continue to assume, in an unquestionable form, a place of prominence in the local cultural landscape, at regional and national levels.
In the Memory Centre, the Municipal Archive will function in an integrated approach, which does not separate what traditionally was called the historical archives of the current archive, as both are essential to the awareness of collective memory, more remote or more recent, even combining different aspects of services available to different types of public, as the consulting room, photography and video, and storage areas, technical areas of disinfection and cleaning of documents, reception and office work areas, with restricted access.
In parallel, the central unit of the Municipal Museum, a polynucleotide structure consisting of various musealogical nuclei, Royal Customs - Museum of Naval Construction, Sixteenth century ship, Museum of Bilros Needlepoint Lace and José Régio House, are conditions inherent in good museum practice, the social spaces being duly identified, as well as techniques, including ample reserves and a conservation and restoration laboratory.
Through the future permanent exhibition, in the design phase, or the core of temporary exhibitions, the Memory Centre explores rather striking elements for the understanding of the territory that today is the Vila do Conde municipality, providing both an innovative approach to the city where visitable resources are present in the most exhibitionally conceptualized rooms in the country.
The structure of the educational service, as well as the existence of the Internet space, the café, shop and the centre of environmental education, associated with 7.000m2 of garden makes the S. Sebastião House, a Memory Centre of and for the vilacondense people, an area of information, culture and leisure fruition.
Location: Vila do Conde
