Expansion and Consolidation of Favelas in Rio de Janeiro during the Contracting and Elaboration of the Agache Plan (1925 - 1931)

• Grant number: 25/11707-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Augusto Urano de Carvalho Frajndlich
• Grantee: Lívia Nascimento Peressim
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In 1927, French architect and urban planner Alfred Agache was hired by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Prado Júnior, to develop a set of guidelines that would direct the urban expansion of what was then the capital of Brazil. This work would later become known as the Agache Plan.That same year, Agache held a series of public lectures in which he summarized his urban vision and sought to engage the public on the need to reshape the city. The following year, he returned to Brazil and set up his office on the ground floor of the Municipal Theater. There, with a multidisciplinary team of engineers, sanitation experts, geographers, and architects - including prominent figures such as Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Santos Maya, and Attílio Corrêa Lima - he developed one of the most influential urban planning projects in Brazilian history.Between 1928 and 1930, the Agache Plan was developed in three parts: an extensive physical-territorial and socioeconomic diagnosis of the city; a set of guidelines with various proposed works in the city center; and finally, specific recommendations to address sanitary issues, such as water drainage, flood control, and urban cleaning.In all parts of the plan, one urban element stood out: the favelas, which Agache defined as "the collection of precarious constructions that developed on the hills of Rio de Janeiro" (Agache, 1930, p.189). These settlements emerged after the demolition of tenements promoted by administrations such as those of Barata Ribeiro, Pereira Passos, and Carlos Sampaio, and grew denser as the city experienced rapid urban and population growth.For Agache, the favelas represented not only a health risk to their residents but also to neighboring neighborhoods, as they were considered unsanitary and breeding grounds for disease. Although he sought to understand the dynamics of popular housing, his idealized urban planning proposed a way of life radically different from that of marginalized social classes."The Agache Plan is the ultimate achievement of the Prado Júnior administration. It is the most important example of the Old Republic's ruling classes attempting to control the development of Rio de Janeiro's urban form, which was already highly contradictory." (ABREU, 1981, p.86)Agache's project faced resistance from the population and, combined with the political circumstances of the time, ended up not being implemented.This research aims to analyze Alfred Agache's role as an urban planner and sociologist during the development of Rio de Janeiro's Master Plan, with an emphasis on his influence and proposals related to the city's favelas. Agache's relevance in promoting urbanism as a science - introducing concepts such as zoning, which remain current - within a context of intense transformations in the urban fabric still requires more in-depth and specific studies.