Cities and ideas: Latin America as a problem to the history of the city and to town planning: Lima, Bogota, São Paulo (1940-1970)

• Grant number: 16/12292-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2016
• End date: May 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Ana Claudia Scaglione Veiga de Castro
• Grantee: Ana Claudia Scaglione Veiga de Castro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Taking the title of the famous book by José Luis Romero as inspiration, this research intends to look at the Latin American cities to discuss the construction of a shared identity. This identity is forged in the urbanization of the continent, and has a privileged moment for analysis between the 40s and 70s. Through ingrown literature in urban conflict that emerges with a generation of novelists breaking national identities and building a common perspective; and the specialized speech of architects and urban planners united around institutions that draw up and disseminate urban policies of greater scope, we intend to discuss the "Latin American city" as idea and as a practice, reflecting on how cities engender speeches and as they are en-gendered by them. The hypothesis is that architects and urban planners built a comprehen-sive look to the space, looking for housing and planning as a form to find ways to an urbanization seen as positive and desirable; while literature seemed to reveal the limits of urbaniza-tion at the very moment in which it was given, revealing answers to questions that only in the 60s and 70s begin to take shape in the planning agenda. It aims to discuss how the cities en-gender discourses and how they engender the cities simultaneously. In this project, planned for two years, we will concentrate the research at three cities: Lima, Bogota and Sao Paulo. Focusing on these cities, we want a qualified way to the Latin American reality, choosing au- thors and debates, identifying constant and peculiarities, that can show better the discussion proposed here, the establishment of a Latin American identity inseparable of the urbaniza- tion of the sub-continent. Seeks yet to advance theoretical and methodological issues in the field of Urban History. (AU)