Campo Cultural Center

Category: Culture and Entertainment > Community Centre

District: Porto > Valongo > Campo > Campo e Sobrado

Location

Situated in the locality of Campo, in the municipality of Valongo, the Campo Cultural Center is integrated into the urban fabric of the parish, specifically in the area known as Campo and Sobrado. Its location contributes to an easy integration into community life, making it a meeting point and cultural dynamizer for residents and visitors, accessible within the urban environment of Valongo.

Origin and Architecture

Inaugurated in 2001, the Campo Cultural Center has its genesis in the recovery of an old primary school, giving it a character of continuity and connection to local history. Its architecture integrates elements that refer to the region's traditions, particularly the work in slate. Overall, structures built using the traditional techniques of this emblematic material of the area stand out, visible in the houses that make up the museum and the surrounding walls, giving the space authenticity and a peculiar aesthetic.

The Cultural Space

The Campo Cultural Center offers a diverse program, focused on performing arts and cinema. It includes an indoor auditorium, with a capacity for 136 seats, ideal for shows and sessions in a more intimate setting. Complementarily, it has an outdoor auditorium, which allows for events under the open sky, providing a different experience adapted to various cultural manifestations. This space is a regular stage for theater plays, dance performances, musical concerts, and film screenings.

The Slate Museum

One of the distinctive elements of the Campo Cultural Center is its Slate Museum, a space dedicated to the memory and heritage of slate exploitation and transformation in the Valongo region. The museum area is housed in four medium-sized houses, built with the same traditional slate working techniques that can be observed in the surrounding walls. Inside, visitors can explore the reconstruction of a miner's house, which illustrates the daily life of the time, from the kitchen and resting space to the workshop where women and children contributed to the family's livelihood through the production of slate quills.

The museum also houses a collection of artifacts and documentation detailing the slate cycle, from its extraction to the varied range of transformations. Notable are the equipment used in the manufacture of school slates, objects that marked generations of students worldwide and underscore the importance of this industry to local history.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.pt