Establishing and reframing of the place: urbanization as cultural phenomenon

• Grant number: 15/17833-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 04, 2016
• End date: May 03, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Principal Investigator: Jane Victal Ferreira
• Grantee: Jane Victal Ferreira
• Host Investigator: Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas (PUC-CAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: King's College London, England

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the processes of urbanization as cultural phenomenon and semantic reconfiguration in the cities as result of urban rehabilitation projects. Usually this phenomenon is analyzed by the qualities that determine the "spirit of place" and values to be preserved. In order to study its complexity, we are interested in investigating it when manifested in negative content, comparing different attitudes in treating the urban redefinition. I shall be mainly concerned with the questions involving the resignification of the built environment including the interaction of violent acts in the course of events and meaning of place; secondarily, with the changes on urban morphology. In order to accomplish that, this research will focus on three areas of the city of São Paulo, Brazil, with buildings that housed activities related to mistreatment of animals and human beings: Vila Mariana Slaughterhouse, DEOPS space of torture, and Carandiru Prison. Recently, these areas became part of public policy; their buildings converted to host cultural programs aiming at redrawing the negative meaning and reversing the degradation process. These processes are not usually studied and the results of urban rehabilitations are frequently interpreted as successful practices, which do not always occur. The research study aims to examine the flow of generation of these urban meanings covering the facts that gave rise to perception of tenebrous place, determining to what extent these measures were able to peacefully abstract or incorporate experiences to the collective memory or may remain as potential sources of conflict in the public spaces of the city.