Sephardic crypto-Judaism architectural iconography as a construction and reinterpretation of a Brazilian underground history: interactions with the collaborative platform Arquigrafia

• Grant number: 23/14406-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: April 01, 2024
• End date: March 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Principal Investigator: Artur Simões Rozestraten
• Grantee: João Lucas Vieira Nogueira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/05134-9 - Arquigrafia 4.0 experience, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/02396-6 - From the Hinterland to Sepharad: iconography of the architectural imaginary of the Sephardic Atlantic diaspora., BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The research project purpose is to create a collaborative architectural iconography on the web about architectural elements originated from the Sephardic crypto-Jewish culture present in buildings in the ancient Sertões de Fora current Brazilian Northeast and São Paulo countryside as a cultural heritage everything within the project Experiencia Arquigrafia 4.0 parameters. Defining values for cultural heritage problem is a semiotic presented signs interpretation problem. Such an interpretation must be a mediation between the subjects and the memory elements and social permanence that are accumulated in space and time. The material cultural heritage protection ends up becoming deficient because it deals mainly with exceptionality, while popular daily exemplary goods are gradually lost. When it are underground histories, excavated from a counter-history (Silva, M., 2019), - which does not intend to delegitimize the official hegemonic history, but to find evidence below, beyond and around it - looking for an encrypted history indicative signs, far from official documents, this heritage becomes even more fragile and defenseless, as is the case of Sephardic crypto-Jewish elements in the current Brazilian northeast dry hinterland and the São Paulo countryside popular architecture. Therefore, the intention is to explore the Jaguaribe valley, in Ceará, in Seridó Rio Grande do Norte area and in historic cities in São Paulo, such as São Vicente, Mogi das Cruzes, São Luís do Paraitinga, Iguape, reaching the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, such as Santo André, Carapicuíba, Santana de Parnaíba and in the city of São Paulo itself creating a cultural Sephardic heritage first cataloging and preliminary documentation in architecture and consequently a platform for disseminating and sharing this heritage as support for safeguarding this memory, which can serve as a basis for more effective heritage protection and education actions. (AU)