Looking at other memories: a construction by the workers

Abstract

While in São Paulo the profusion of events seems to dissipate, to some degree, a unified memory, in Sorocaba it presents itself as a complete project. The feeling is that the past is closer, that it is possible to imagine the bandeirantes (pioneers) in 'struggle' for the conquest of Brazilian territory. The 'heroes' are chosen and molded to serve a purpose. In São Paulo, the explosion of monument construction in the first decades of the 20th century reflects an urgency for renewed relationships with the urban environment. The image of São Paulo as a mirror of progress is established at the same time as the valorization of the bandeirante figure, forming a pendulum between past and future advances towards civility and prosperity from a past with analogous characteristics. But there was also another construction, an immense and varied set that was being engendered in the city: the factories and workers' villages. If the first was a device for creating an identity in the masses, the second was the formation of this identity from the multiple facets and difficulties that the population faced. In the urban environment, above ground, choices about buildings reflect the desires of the government and the population. Of everything that has passed, only a portion will be preserved. Examining the processes related to the city's public space in relation to the complexity of memorial landmarks demands observing the relationship between the use of buildings and their surroundings, and the issue of material production, which is largely anonymous: constructions for those excluded from the city's official memories, for the workers in their diverse and heterogeneous mass. Analyzing the places of memory in today's cities provides us with a historical awareness to think about and act upon the future of cities and their populations.