Os engenheiros e a cidade:São Paulo 1904/1926

Abstract

This research deals with the participation that the engineers of the Polytechnic School of São Paulo had in the urban changes which the city of Sao Paulo went through in the first decades of the XXth century. It deals with dialoguing with the conceptions, diagnosis and proposals of the engineers for remodeling the city. It is highlighted that notions of civilizations, modernization and progress have become objectives to be achieved at any price in name of the conquest of an urban city . In the case of Sao Paulo, the foundation of the Polytechnic School in 1894 has strongly contributed for the city to receive a significant amount of professionals that have proposed themselves to the task to think about the urban problems and propose solutions for them. The foundation of Poly, as it became known, has meant to Sao Paulo the concrete possibility to have national professionals to present proposals for urban transformations. The first chapter of the essay gives an overall view of the Polytechnic School of Sao Paulo since its foundation, from the speech that involved its creation and its purpose and indicates engineers who have distinguished themselves by their action in the city by means of the exercise of public offices and the realization of their proposals. The Sao Paulo of the engineers is described through the proposition of urban interventions. It is discussed how the formation of engineers and their articulation with local powers was seen as strategic for the civilizing mission they were devoted to. The second chapter deals with the construction of the housings in Sao Paulo from what the engineers judged to be a model for hygienic housing, healthy and morally sound for the family and society. For such, they got involved in preparing norms, codes and regulations which, turned into law, with the pretension to propose a new concept of well living in Sao Paulo. The division of the city into perimeter zones supplements our comprehension about the different types of housing constructed in the same city, as well as the specifications by law that differentiated them according to the zone where the housing would be constructed. The third chapter departs from the observation of the city divided into zones and shows the discussions about the plans for Improvements to the City and which areas were target of major investment as opposed to others. Here the city is seen as stage of dispute for hegemonies of different social groups which used to conflict against each other. Out of the collision between different active social subjects the city is constructed, demolished and re-constructed again several times