In the second decade of this century a series of major international events will take placein Rio de Janeiro – the World Football Championship (2014) and the Olympic Games(2016) – and this will undoubtedly affect the city´s urban structure. The renovation of the central area – the urbanization of Porto Maravilha – will be one of the essential objectives of the proposed plans. An open space at the business district – the Esplanada de Santo Antônio – and its fragmented occupation by contradictory cultural functions, establish a challenge for the city center future. Project prepared for the occupation of Santo Antônio Hill defined the particularity of the discussion about Rio de Janeiro urban culture of the of the first half of the XX century. Master plans developed by Donat Alfred Agache (1875-1959), Paulo de Camargo e Almeida (1906-1973), José Octacílio Saboya (1899-1967) and Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1909-1964) represent the changes occurred from the academic vision of the urban structure to the renovation of the Modern Movement under Le Corbusier influence. They express the antithesis between the desire to integrate the new projects in the traditional, compact tissue of the historic city and valorize the diversification of cultural functions. At the same time appeared a rejection of an elemental organization of tall buildings in the open new space, thesis finally applied on the partial concretization of the Santo Antônio Esplanade. The object of this paper is to show how social and cultural meanings of the urban center calls for an intimate relationship between historic heritage and the new proposals of renovation. And also try to define the dialog between architectural and urban typologies related to the compact tissue, denied by the isolated towers that represent the image of the contemporaneousness. In this indispensable articulation, the discussed urban culture at the Santo Antônio Esplanade will be an essential precedent for future projects for this central area.
Autores
Ano do texto: 2012
Citação ABNT
SEGRE, R.; KOATZ, G. D. ; VILAS BOAS, N. B. . The Center of Rio de Janeiro: Urban Cultural Paradoxes. In: 15th IPHS Conference, Cities, Nations & Regions in Planning History, 2012, São Paulo. 15 IPHS Conference, 2012. v. 2.