Railroads and sanitation in São Paulo. Engineer Antonio Francisco de Paula Souza and the construction of network infrastructure territory and urban in São Paulo

Author(s)

Cristina de Campos

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2007-08-22

Examining board members

Maria Lucia Caira Gitahy; Carlos Roberto Monteiro de Andrade; Nilson Ghirardello; Luiz Antonio de Castro Santos; Rebeca Scherer

• Advisor: Maria Lucia Caira Gitahy

Abstract

The objective of this PhD thesis is to analyze how the territorial and urban infrastructural network was built in the state of São Paulo, in the last decades of the 19th century. Conceiving the construction of this infrastructure as a social production of the space, which mobilized several social actors, we will concentrate our analytical focus in a specific historical figure involved with the construction of this network, the civil engineer Antonio Francisco de Paula Souza (1843-1917). As Paula Souza is better known for his work as director of the Escola Politécnica of São Paulo, the biographies about him make little mention to his career as an engineer before his entree in the academic universe, a career that had great importance in the construction of the infrastructure network, specially in the railroad and sanitation sectors. Unveiling this rich professional history and bringing about documental evidence that allows us to understand how the infrastructure network was constructed, we expect to contribute with new information concerning the prolific career of this engineer in São Paulo. (AU)