Built heritage in Brás neighborhood

• Grant number: 14/25304-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2015
• End date: January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Beatriz Mugayar Kühl
• Grantee: Luiza do Carmo Marcos Di Girolamo Nadalutti
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This scientific initiation project deals with the urban heritage in the neighborhood of Brás, in São Paulo. The project builds on other undergraduate researches about the neighborhoods of Brás and Mooca that were jointly developed by research groups at FAU USP (faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Sao Paulo) and UNIFESP (Federal University of Sao Paulo), coordinated respectively by Professors Drs. Beatriz Mugayar Kühl and Manoela Rossinetti Rufinoni. The projects that have been carried out since august 2012 all have a basic research in common, as the bibliographic references to understand those areas are very similar. Next to this basic research, each involved student is assigned a more detailed study about a specific area within one of the two neighborhoods. Thus, all studies have a common ground when it comes to the aspect of methodology and justification, synthesizing fundamental bibliography, but are specific regarding the delimitated study areas whose boundaries are set in each particular scientific initiation project. The neighborhood of Bras, field of study of the students of FAU USP, has undergone significant changes since the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, especially due to the expanding industrial activity. Thus this scientific initiation project will seek for identification of the essential structural elements of the delimitated study area, investigating particularly the role of industrial units, housing, educational, religious, cultural, leisure and commercial buildings, the infrastructural network and the substantial role of the railways. The study will be developed through bibliographic, documental and iconographic research, exploring the Sao Paulo's maps to trace the area's transformation through time. Furthermore, photographic field research will be made in order to investigate the current state of the buildings situated within the delimited area. The project is intended to designate the urban changes of the specific study area within the neighborhood of Bras, in order to identify buildings and urban landscapes that may be of interest for preservation. By means of this scientific initiation project it is aimed to give rise to subsidies for the development of public policies for inventory and heritage preservation.