The idealized images spread out by the heritage processes hide very often the urbanity ideologies in which they are based. Analyzing two operations related with the historical city center of the Portuguese town of Porto, recognized has world heritage in 1995, we put in evidence and we try to discuss some of these ideologies. "Porto Feliz" is appointed and examined as a program whose aim is to eradicate of the urban landscape human elements supposedly incompatible with the heritage status that this landscape exhibits. A manual of diffusion of good practices about the use of the domestic space and the common public spaces, apparently adjusted to a zone consecrated as a valuable heritage place, is also analyzed. We conclude that the transition from a lived culture to an exhibited culture, that the heritage status implies, depend on disciplinarian and hygienic operations.
heritage presentation; Porto Feliz; urban ideologies; world heritage