Non-places in São Paulo: its creation in public-private partnerships in the city

• Grant number: 16/09683-1
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Principal researcher: Guilherme Teixeira Wisnik
• Grantee: Victória Sanches Ferreira da Silva
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The current research intends to study the so-called non-places, whilst observing urban spaces produced since the 1990th decade in São Paulo, through vast urban reforms, the "urban operations". Its objective is to propose a relation between the "non-place" concept and specific urban cases in the city. Non-places are, in a general overview, transitional sites that operate by the car's logic of transit and occupation of space and in which consumption relations take place. Creating and being created by the city's desertification process, the non-place is unqualified, disjointed from its surroundings and non-identitarian. Thereby, non-places structure the contemporary urbanity in a deeply functionalistic way, promoting the circulation of people, money and goods. All that through a textual interface with its passer-by, that is held in a consequent conjuncture of “loneliness", as the non-place's functionalism does not demand interpersonal relations. Examples of non-places are residual urban sites, road complexes, and large places dedicated to consumption and transit. The study will base itself on established intellectual and artistic bibliography of the theme, and aims to understand the non-places in Brazil and São Paulo context. The recurrent process that generates non-places in this city shall be analyzed and exemplified with the “Urban operations Faria Lima and Águas Espraiadas” areas, and the motives behind their production as such shall be understood. The study also intends to analyses if these regions might or might not be considered non-places, and, if so, with which particularities. (AU)