Jazz ao Centro Clube (JACC) is a cultural association that promotes musical culture, with a special emphasis on jazz
Under grey, rain-soaked skies, something quietly powerful took place in the heart of Coimbra. JACC (Jazz ao Centro Clube), a cultural association based in Coimbra, Portugal, and one of EMCCINNO’s five transformation sites, opened the doors of Salão Brazil not just to a building, but to memory, presence, and possibility.
This was not just an event. It was a gesture, a soft but steady step into the ‘prototyping’ journey that EMCCINNO is gently weaving across Europe. A step rooted in care, community, and the wisdom of listening.
On this particular Open Doors Day, the original plan had been to welcome the voices and laughter of children. The rain, however, had other plans. The story did not stop there though. Instead, what unfolded was a tapestry of unexpected depth and emotion.
Um dia serei eu o mar e a areia,
A tudo quanto existe me hei-de unir,
E o meu sangue arrasta em cada veia
Esse abraço que um dia se há-de abrir.
Em Todos Os Jardins (extract). Author: Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
JACC invited neighbours and friends, old and new, to contribute their memories; literally. Photographs of the Salão Brazil in years past were laid out like seeds. Conversations sprouted around them. People remembered. People imagined. Where once there were bricks, there were now shared visions.
For those who came empty-handed, JACC had prepared images that could become conversation-starters. This act of anticipation and care, speaks volumes of their approach: radically welcoming, deliberately participatory. A powerful invitation to think and dream collectively about the future of Salão Brazil.
The JACC’s 22nd anniversary added a special rhythm to the day, like a heartbeat beneath it all.
Students offered jazz. Community members offered stories. Other friendly entities, fellow travellers, also responded to this call and attended this celebration. Amidst the soft and pulsating rhythms of Jazz, they shared their own journeys through community empowerment, social economy and ecological sustainability. Together, they made something more than an event, they made a commons.
Germana Duarte shared this moment with the wider EMCCINNO family shortly afterward in an online gathering. She spoke not just of logistics and outcomes, but of feeling. And through her words, we were able to feel it too.
Alongside her, Gonçalo Canto Moniz (Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra) reminded us of the threads that bind space and story, architecture and affection, place and people. This was not about consulting; it was about co-imaginating.
And it does not end here.
JACC is moving forward with Soundscrape, a method rooted in attentive listening. Community ideas will be gathered, mapped, echoed back through a public assembly, and refined through collaborative deliberation. From this soil, intermediate committees will grow, tending to the long-term care of the building’s transition, always with the community’s hand at the helm.
As JACC walks ahead, the other four EMCCINNO pilots are finding their own paths through the forest of transformation. But having this first bud bloom in Coimbra gives us all ‘actionable hope’, and reminds us what shared learning feels like when it is done with trust and tenderness.
Special y warm thanks: Gonçalo Canto Moniz, supported by Paulo Lemos and Germana Duarte, for coordinating the participatory process. The sociology students (Ana Mota, Francis Salema, Francisca Veloso, Isabel Monteiro, Marcela Freire, Magali Monteiro, coordinated by Rosa Monteiro and Cláudia Pato de Carvalho) for doing interviews and focus groups. José Miguel Pereira for coordinating everything. Sílvia Ferreira (CES) and other JACC staff (Adriana Ávila, Alexandra Neto Ferreira, Bernardo Rocha) for supporting the process.
