Connected histories between Amazon and Goa: Antônio José Landi and the circulation of architectural culture models on the Portuguese Colonial Empire

• Grant number: 22/14302-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: July 01, 2023
• End date: February 09, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Renata Maria de Almeida Martins
• Grantee: Mateus Carvalho Nunes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/06538-9 - Baroque-açu: Portuguese America in the art geography of the global South, AP.JP2

Abstract

The research aims to investigate the movement of images of architectural traditions between territories of Portuguese dominion in Asia and the Amazon - especially in Goa, India, and the state of Pará, in Brazil - in the second half of the 18th century, based on the analysis of the architectural production of the Bolognese architect Antônio José Landi (1713-1791). It seeks to understand in what ways these traditions were received and re-operated in quite different sociocultural scenarios, although politically governed by the colonial expansionism of the Portuguese Crown, connecting the realities of Goa and Pará. The main objects of analysis of this research are the architectural project developed by Antônio José Landi for an annex chapel to the Palace of the Ataíde Teive family in Panjim, Goa, India (1770), and the intervention on the staircase of the same palace. The research aspire to understand how geographically disparate territories can respond, in their artistic and architectural productions based on the reception and re-elaboration of European models, to dynamics of imagery similarity and singularity guided by current cultural hybridisms, structured by historical and political bonds that connect them. Based on the mapping, analysis and publication of unprinted archival documentation dispersed in archives around the world, the research seeks to elucidate the complex negotiations and dynamics in the Iberian colonies in the light of the contributions of contemporary historiography, whose transdisciplinary matrix avoids Eurocentric molds and privileges the rhizomatic relationships of connected global histories and their cultural hybrids.