Avant-garde and Nostalgia Workers' Party and Contemporary Architecture in São Paulo.

• Grant number: 22/10167-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: December 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Augusto Urano de Carvalho Frajndlich
• Grantee: Frederico Vergueiro Costa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Workers' Party (PT) was created in 1980, during Brazilian redemocratization, and it won the municipal elections of São Paulo for the first time in 1988, beginning the mandate of Luiza Erundina. The municipal urbanization company, EMURB, has engaged in one of the most symbolic projects of the government: the relocation of the city hall to the historic center, in a region of intense popular commerce. The project of a modern building was planned next to an old restored eclectic pavilion, the Industrial Palace, both commissioned to the architect Lina Bo Bardi and her team and inserted in the requalification plans of Parque D. Pedro II, a traditional public park. It was intended to update conceptions of the modernist avant-garde that should be adapted to dialogue with the negative consequences of the modernization process, among them, the destruction of old areas and buildings. The embargo imposed on the project by political opponents gave it a sense of failure, confirmed by the historiography of architecture that has barely addressed the case. This research intends to demonstrate how this episode anticipates issues that have become relevant in São Paulo and national contemporary architecture, as well as to offer a framework on the role of architects in the later administrations of the PT in São Paulo from the 2000s, when the party was consolidated in the federal sphere.