The old cinema halls in neighborhoods Brás and Mooca: architectures and spaces of sociability

• Grant number: 14/15398-2
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal researcher: Manoela Rossinetti Rufinoni
• Grantee: Bruna Aparecida Silva de Assis
• Home Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to identify and study the old movie theaters in the city of São Paulo during the twentieth century, taking as a research outline the districts of Brás and Mooca. The aim is to highlight the importance of this activity in the former urban local conformation, considering both the representativeness of buildings as design (architecture, agents involved in its construction, suffered transformations and paths in the urban fabric); to the role of cinemas in promoting particular practices of sociability and conviviality. Old neighborhoods paulistanos workers as Brás and Mooca have undergone radical urban transformations in the last decades, a process that has caused profound changes in its architectural physiognomy and forms of sociability and use of space. The disappearance of cinemas, with the demolition or conversion of use of buildings, was one of the effects of this process. In this sense, this research project also intends to provide a contribution to understanding this transformation process, identifying remaining traces of that past in the current urban fabric, an instrument that can shed light for the recovery of such buildings as cultural heritage.