Ways of living, home decorating: producers, customers and goods in São Paulo mid-twentieth century

• Grant number: 17/11458-9
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Ana Lucia Duarte Lanna
• Grantee: Camila Gui Rosatti
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/23451-1 - Cultural capitals and the international circulation of modern design: theoretical, methodological contributions and collection of primary sources, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This research aims to produce an analysis of the supply and consumption of products and services that integrated the wide market of architecture, arts, decoration and domestic comfort in the city of São Paulo between the years 1940 and 1960. This space scene will be analyzed as a market of symbolic goods, in other words, a differentiated social space with segmentations and disputes, in which various agents, including architects, designers, craftsmen, decorators and merchants of arts and artifacts. These professionals, endowed with specialized knowledge, technical skills and artistic dispositions, sought to produce models of housing, taste guidelines and aesthetic repertoires representing different lifestyles. Besides examining the differentiation of agents, products and representations offered, it is proposed to understand the territorial dimension of this market. Based on a series of geographical data provided by various sources (commercial registers, telephone directories, newspapers, magazines, specialized publications), the professional addresses of these agents will be mapped, paying attention to the ways of registering in the urban space. With a quantitative and qualitative approach, the research aims to make explicit the historical conditions of consumption of artistic and commercial goods linked to the domestic space, considering the relations between social segmentations, symbolic hierarchies, spatial differentiations and international circulations. This postdoctoral study is linked to the project "Figurations of São Paulo: city, culture and urban experience in the twentieth century" which proposes to understand the experience of modernity of São Paulo. In the same direction, it aims to embrace three scales of investigation - home, street and neighborhood - assuming that these axes allow to better characterize the spatial configurations of the ways of inhabiting and appropriating the city.