___________________________________________________________________ ________ PRESENCE AND ABSENCE: BUILT HERITAGE AS A TRIGGER OF MEMORY DANIELLA MARTINS COSTA (1) KAMILA COBBE TEIXEIRA (2) (1) Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arquitetura e Urbanismo – PPGAU daniellamartinscosta@gmail.com (2) INT – Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia/FUNCATE kamcobbe@gmail.com The invitation to a technical visit for a discussion on historic preservation on a historic city in Minas Gerais led a group of engineers and architects to be in very good spirits. The purpose of the field trip to the historic site of Tiradentes was to experience the city for four days to provoke discussions about the action of heritage agencies in historic cities, about preservation today and about how we, construction professionals, working with such a differentiated collection, can position ourselves regarding this historical collection present in our cities. The Group, to whom I taught the disciplines of history, is made up of architects, interior designers, engineers and a museologist, part of the Specialization Course in preservation and conservation of heritage assets at SENAI-RJ. They are mostly professionals who have already experience at the market for some years, but who are being initiated in discussions about historical heritage through the course. Given this situation, I thought that the group's observation would be of great help for an analysis of space and memory. The theme, common in Master's level research and now also present at the Doctorate level, and discussed during the Anthropology of Space classes by Professor José Reginaldo, rekindled a series of questions and presented a new perspective for the connection between space and memory. The main one is the possibility of triggering memory through the absence of monuments and places of memory. So this paper is based on some questions: Does place sustain memory? Are there really "Places of Memory"? Can memory exist without places of memory? Why does the past touch us so much? Do historic cities make us more Brazilian by reaching inwards and touching our past? Do we get similarly touched when we visit Brasilia or Rio de Janeiro? On our way to Tiradentes, the recommendation to all students was that on our first day in the city, we let ourselves get lost in its streets, alleys and squares. And so it was done. It was interesting to note first the general euphoria of the inhabitants of a city like Rio de Janeiro arriving at a small town in the interior of Minas Gerais. Watching Recife, September from 22 to 25, 2013