Cosmopolitanism and World Music in Rio de Janeiro at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The urban reforms in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the twentieth century were central to the new Republican government’s motto of “Civilization and Progress.” From sanitation and electrical lighting of streets and parks to the construction of neoclassical buildings and large boulevards comparable to those of contemporary Paris, urban renovations marked important moments of both political affirmation and cultural transition in the Brazilian capital. On the one hand, the urbanization projects emptied public coffers, and the bota abaixo (demolitions) forced thousands of residents to relocate to poor conditions in suburban areas; on the other hand, the revamping of old Rio de Janeiro provided much-needed infrastructure to a city that had grown continually in the previous decades, doubling its 1890 population to almost a million people by 1910. The new landscape also came to symbolize the dream of a growing (mostly white) middle class, as new architectural facades and public spaces changed fashions and behavioral patterns, giving Rio’s residents the feeling of being at the center of their country. The new capital became an icon of urban transformation and modernity to be followed by “the rest” of an agrarian Brazil viewed by the political and intellectual elite as backward. Mayor Pereira Passos’s plan to reinvigorate the Brazilian capital also highlighted the government’s attempt to put the country at the center of the Western world, showcasing Brazil’s embrace of European ideals of civilization and progress that associated modernization with urbanization. Having Hausmann’s Paris as a model, the urban transformation of Rio de Janeiro was accompanied by carefully designed postcards that helped project new images of the country abroad and attract foreign investors and visitors. Most importantly, the new urban landscape allowed the Brazilian capital entrance to the European Belle Epoque and turned the city into a cosmopolitan center in the Americas (Figure 1).