Bethencourt da Silva and the Architectural Culture of Rio de Janeiro in the 19th Century

Abstract

This article seeks to present the main protagonist of the doctoral thesis defended in 2015 under the title: “Bethencourt da Silva and the Architectural Culture of Rio de Janeiro in the 19th Century”. Supported by the prerequisites of their life trajectory: academic training, professional performance, published speeches and developed projects; as well as the main actors with whom he interacted, especially civil engineers trained in Brazil, the thesis sought to demonstrate the cultural changes
occurred in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the second half of the 19th century. Throughout the thesis, we sought to highlight the importance of recent research being carried out on Rio's architecture, contributing to a critical view of its production. Due to the few studies on this topic, and on the main designers of the period, we sought to focus on the formation of an intellectual field, based on the representation of classes established by the academic culture already established in the country, and, above all, to fill an existing gap regarding the theoretical and practical influences during the activities of these professionals. Seeking not to attribute to the theme a monographic function, but already supported by the existing relationship between biography and context, we believe that the individualized study of these professionals who were committed to the constitution of a new architectural culture in the imperial capital, comes to collaborate with the identification of thought and criticism Brazilian architectural style, brought about by a new professional and compositional stance at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.