Seismic risk and intangible landscape heritage on São Jorge

Abstract Responding to the EAR call for papers examining the architectural discipline ‘Beyond the visible’, the paper examines the relationship between seismic risk analysis and narratives embedded in the intangible landscape heritage in an area where risk forms part of both memories and physical landscapes. Centring landscape architectural fieldwork undertaken on São Jorge in the Azores in 2022, the paper traces the physical conditions and intangible landscape heritage of three sites where traces of seismic crisis in 1808, 1964 and 1980, are visible, preserved or otherwise present. These landscapes become visual indicators of the seismic forces operating below, creating both an awareness of future risk and past disasters, as experienced on the peripheries of Portuguese society and geography. Resilience can be seen as intangible heritage, as it offers a way of relating to specific local environmental factors and the community as a whole. In this paper, the intangible heritage of coping with disaster and risk in the Azores have been examined through qualitative fieldwork centring phenomenology and non-representation. The paper juxtaposes resilience and agency within intangible landscape heritage with the centralised analysis and mapping of risk in the reports published by the European Union (EU) Copernicus programme. In a world with increasing risk of climate change fuelled natural disasters, the São Jorge case can illuminate the dichotomy of hazard analysis and intangible materialities and heritage in critical zones. This paper argues that these post-disaster landscapes and built environments, the risks embedded in future seismic movements, and the way communities interact with these, constitute intangible cultural heritage.