The date of construction of Forte da Barra de Aveiro, Forte Novo or Castelo da Gafanha is unknown but, according to Caetano Carlos, it could date back to the middle or second half of the 16th century.
At this time, the barra was also located close to this location, also justifying the need to defend, precisely here, the entrance to the estuary.
What seems certain is that the constant movement of the barra quickly made the fort, still under construction, obsolete, abandoning the unfinished work.
This is the particularly complex and shifting scenario behind the Forte da Barra.Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, buildings were built that still stand next to the fort and in some parts the fortification was demolished for its construction, having remained in use until 1993, as residential buildings to support the Port of Aveiro.
The present program intends to rehabilitate and qualify the entire fort, including the patio and the bastion rooms. The intervention reclassifies the interior spaces, adapting them to the new hotel use. The intervention sought to be as least intrusive as possible so that the formal, constructive and spatial characteristics of the fort prevail, having as a principle the recovery of its original expression. The most significant intervention will be establishing the connection to the building that will house the 33 accommodation units.
The new project for this hotel development is thus born out of increased care in the formal/architectural articulation between the pre-existing conditions and the solutions suggested by contemporary times.
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