Joa?o Pessoa (PB) and Aracaju (SE): about modernization and modern architecture

Abstract

The 1950s and 1960s represent an important moment of Brazilian development, in which medium-sized cities went through an intense process of modernization driven by a developmental project that has particular impact in the Northeast. The development discourse propelled the modernization process of many northeastern capitals was based on symbols such as the automobile, the skyscraper and the spread of the vocabulary of modern architecture. Cities like Joa?o Pessoa and Aracaju promoted important urban transforma- tions aimed at legitimizing a condition of progress and modernity creating new axes of urban expansion, erecting tall buildings and renewing the urban landscape through the receiving architectural elements such as butter ies roofs, prismatic volumes and pillars “V“. This communication aims to analyze the possible approaches between the discourse and modernization processes performed in these northeastern capitals. The focus of this communication sets the process of di usion and reception of modern architecture in Brazil within the time frame mentioned above, through a compar- ative analysis of the production of this architecture in the cities of Joa?o Pessoa and Aracaju. The production of modern architecture in Joa?o Pessoa is, to some extent, related with architects from Recife making projects to clients in Joa?o Pessoa (e.g. Aca?cio Gil Borsoi) and architects from Parai?ba graduated by the School of Fine Arts of Pernambuco, in addition to the intellectual and cultural life of this capital. On the other hand, the production of modern architecture in Aracaju although it was carried out largely through the work of designers and engineers, despite the proximity of Salvador (BA), another important cultural center in the Northeast, has elements of the same modern vocabulary - a process which was intensi ed Post-Brasilia. So, how circulated the ideas that drove the desire and the search for modernization, that resulted in a certain image of modernity in two northeastern capital midsized?