From AutoCad to AutoCod

From a fish perspective, architecture is a passage point in its transformation from animal to commodity. Indus- trial fisheries fish for profit, and they require buildings to support their economic activity. Hence, architecture becomes entangled within the intricate relationship em- bodied in the continuum between terrestrial and marine landscapes. Understanding this broad network, where natural and anthropic factors come together, requires multidisciplinary research, from architecture to marine biology. Within this framework, this paper presents the results of a case study addressing a key question: What is the relationship between architectures built for fishing and the ecological balance of fish populations? The object of study is cod and the ecosystems of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. These cod populations have been exploited from the fifteenth century until their ultimate collapse, when in 1992 Canada government issued a moratorium preventing commercial cod fish- eries in its territorial waters. A minor part of this popu- lation was exploited by Portuguese fisheries, amongst which is the Parceria Geral de Pescarias (PGP), located in Barreiro, south of Lisbon, and operating from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The PGP site went through several transformations during its lifetime, including new open-air racks and indoor artificial dryers to process the cod. Fished thou- sands of kilometres away, its production mainly fed the population of Lisbon. To rethink policies of planetary management, archi- tectural history must assess the interplay between de- sign and nature. Thus, another question: How can we render visible the dimensions and characteristics of built structures and relate them to their impact on the unstable ecological dynamics of fish species within marine ecosystems?