Filamentos metropolitanos: a emergência de formações urbanísticas especializadas no território metropolitano de Lisboa

Abstract

The changes in the physical and economic context of the recent years have potentiated the transformations in Lisbon’s metropolitan territory and the consequent formation of functionally specialized urban axis. These are product of metropolitan infrastructuration and densification, resulting in a polynuclear urban system with areas of great concentration of economic activities related to the tertiary sector and, hence, the abandonment and restructuring of the vast peripheral industrial areas. The theme focuses the emergence of urban morphologies associated to a programmatic specialization related to the different economic activities. In order to contextualise and identify the process underlying its emergence and consolidation, the article explores the transformations that have occurred in the metropolitan structure over the past 50 years and identifies the main drivers and consequences of the territorial specialization. Then, the contemporary trends and the materialization of the changes and their territorial impact are analysed, by resorting to the case study (the metropolitan filament between Lisbon and Vila Franca de Xira).