Fragmented Pauliceia: an investigation on the process of demolition of spaces in the central area of São Paulo and its media representations

• Grant number: 18/15939-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2018
• End date: February 28, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Atique
• Grantee: Fernando Atique
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 20/04846-5 - Demolitions in the Northeast Sector of the Irradiation Perimeter: deciphering the spatial changes between Parque Dom Pedro II and Avenida Cásper Líbero, BP.TT; 19/24944-4 - Santa Ifigênia and República: fundamental space operations for the design of the irradiation perimeter (1930 - 1945), BP.TT; 19/06749-0 - Demolitions and Viaducts: survey of official sources, of the press and iconographics as a support for the History of the Irradiation Perimeter and its passage over the Saracura and Itororó creeks (1937-1945), BP.TT; 19/06390-1 - Demolitions in Largo dos Remédios: survey of official sources, of the press and iconographic as a support to the History of the Irradiation Perimeter (1937-1945), BP.TT

Abstract

The city of São Paulo was known, in the historiography that deals with its transformation, and also, in diverse media commentaries, as the one that was destroyed to make room for a metropolis. These images of fragmentation, shattering, rupture with the past, or even of progress, permeated the imaginary of generations that lived the twentieth century, and seem to have naturalized the processes of demolitions. The effect of this historical strategy hide the possibility of understanding the displacements of populations affected by the clearing , expropriation processes, amounts paid, the disappearance of symbolic spaces, conflicts in the press and representations (laudatory and contentious) inherent to such actions transformations of a city. However, we also realized that not everything was lost, or disappeared in the fabric of the city, much less in the urban imaginary. We propose, then, an understanding, through the bias of urban social history, of some of the dimensions inherent in the configuration and reconfiguration of the city. This research is based on the urban project of greatest impact in the centrality of São Paulo until the first half of the twentieth century: the implantation of the Irradiation Perimeter, a basilar part of the Avenues Plan, developed by Ulhôa Cintra and Prestes Maia, in 1922 e 1924, and installed by the capital's municipality, and by Prestes Maia himself, from 1938 until 1945. Thus, we will raise to the circuit that involved the regions of Sé, Várzea do Carmo (Parque Dom Pedro), Santa Ifigênia, República, Bixiga and Liberdade, the administrative procedures, the social tensions inherent in the demolishing activity of the municipality, the representations of progress and future, as well as the emergence of texts, visual representations and judicial processes that served as averse to the idea that the implementation of the Automobile Ring was consensual in Sao Paulo. The goal is ultimately to double: a) lead to a virtual three-dimensional reconstruction of the city's fragmented sections to the implantation of the irradiation perimeter, ensuring a greater understanding of the impacts of space changes, survival, and didactic application, and b) the formatting of an exhibition, in which bureaucratic documents, textual reports, images and the visual reconstruction of the city before and after irradiation perimeter can be divulged. (AU)