Technique and City in Brazil’s Centenary Year

Abstract

ABSTRACT The panoramas of the International Centenary of the Independence of Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1922) were highlighted by the illuminated dome of the Palace of the States with its 45 meter height. The Palace was designed by Hippolyto Gustavo Pujol Jr. (1880–1952), a professor at the Polytechnic School of São Paulo, and called attention to the verticality and illumination of the dome, nicknamed the “tower of jewels”. It was an eclectic edifice with an innovative “reinforced cement framework”. Here we find in the Palace of the States the starting point for an investigation of the then novel structural technique and its unexpected reflection on the cityscape. We base this essay on Brazilian classical study de Augusto Carlos de Vasconcelos “O Concreto Armado no Brasil” (“Reinforced Concrete in Brazil”), to investigate the companies working with reinforced concrete operating in the city at the start of the 1920s, and the discourse supporting the disclosure of the technique. To corroborate the interpretation of the images, we rely on the reflections of and we recollect the thesis of Sérgio Ferro “O Canteiro e o Desenho” (“The Building Site and Design”) (2006 [1969]), to seek the reflections of the technique in the city’s social spheres.