Autores: Filipe Temtem, Paola D’Alencon
The present article intends to reflect on a series of examples that relapsed in exploring the existing synergy between transport infrastructure and architecture, deciphering the important mainstream of “traffic architectures”. Based on the assumption that architecture design serves as a tool for adapting and integrating transportation projects and systems into the city, this article recognizes firstly a chain of architectural tools that spins the railway works of August Orth and Otto Wagner with the “buildings-viaduct” of Le Corbusier and the proposed organic rows by Palmer and Wood, passing by the mega-structures of Edgar Chambless until reaching the contemporary interventions of OMA and NL Architects offices. Secondly, the reflection of this chain enlightens the influence of architectural design in the transport infrastructures projects, demonstrating how the link of such ideas, over time, plays a fundamental role in the paradigm shift of contemporary planning. Thus architectonic instruments, builds the background to show how new and historical concepts of «merge» and “hybridization» sprouted, revealing the development of one integrated design system that adds transport infrastructure and architecture, contemplating its interactions with the context and the technical aspects that underpin it. With this approach we try to unveil an architectonics toolbox for transport engineering project, emphasizing the role of the architect in the construction of road design.