Perched on remote rural hillsides in North-West Portugal and Spain, these vernacular stone grain stores or espigueiros have a solemnity and grace that eludes most contemporary builders - Delight - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, August, 2002 by Michael Webb

Portugal was described (by American writer Datus Proper) as 'the last old place' in Western Europe, but EC credits are rapidly transforming the country. Provincial towns are being torn up for new construction and many Portuguese have shiny new cars in which to impersonate Mr Toad as they race around madly honking on brandnew roads. The young are deserting the mountain villages in search of bright lights and paying jobs as they are all over he world, and places like Lindoso--at the end of a winding road leading into Spain--may soon be desolate. For the moment, this farming community survives as a hybrid of ancient stones and bristling television antennae.

The glory of Lindoso is its 50 granite espigueiros--grain storage containers raised on pilotis with round caps to keep rats at bay--which huddle at the base of a ruined medieval castle. Bernard Rudofsky celebrated them in his 1964 exhibition and book, Architecture Without Architects, and showed how they are grouped around flat granite outcrops that serve as a communal threshing floor. This doubles as a gathering place, for the village beyond is largely given over to farmyards, with no formal streets or square. Cows graze and hens nest among the pilotis, making the complex an organic extension of the land and the perpetually hard-scrabble existence of its inhabitants.

You find espigueiros scattered across the rural north-west of Iberia (over the border in Galicia they are called horreos) and there are many local variations of size and openings. Some have vertical slats of granite or wood to ventilate the interior, others have slotted slabs, and the pitched roofs are tiled or covered in stone pavers. The pilotis are the one consistent feature, and, according to legend, they go walking at night. Like traditional barns, espigueiros combine nobility and practicality--and they have a timeless quality that eludes contemporary builders. In Lindoso, there's a cross at each end, giving the structures the look of funerary chapels, and they may soon become a memorial for a vanished way of life.