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Anna Beatriz Galvão & Hugo Segawa
One can ask how an organization like DOCOMOMO – with such European
background – could have flourished in Brazil. Certainly it can be
explained only with the improvement of the discussion that widened
the organization’s scope, and the full development of an
international dialogue along the six international conferences
already realized, including the one in Brasilia in the year 2000 –
the first organized outside the Old World. The Brazilian conference
celebrated and coincided with the 40th anniversary of the
inauguration of the most challenging city scheme of the Modern
Movement. And it was the opportunity to the foreigners visit the
very first Modern Movement ensemble listed at the UNESCO World
Heritage Monument, in 1987. But this is not a recent or a shallow
concern on MoMo documentation and preservation. The earliest MoMo
building in the Brazilian Heritage was appointed in 1948: the
Ministry of Education and Health Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, by
Lucio Costa and Team, with Le Corbusier as consultant. It was listed
only three years after its completion. At the same year, the
Pampulha ensemble in Belo Horizonte, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in
1939-1942, was included in the Brazilian Heritage – modern
achievements considered as important as the impressive 18th century
baroque buildings of the listing. So, in Brazil, MoMo buildings and
sites deserved attention more than a half century ago. We have heard
from foreigners that Brazil is a modern country. But we don’t
believe that this is enough to explain this peculiar approach that
Brazilians have to the modernity.
The first contacts with the DOCOMOMO
International showed how rich it could be the co-existence of so
many different interpretations about the so called “Modern Movement”.
It was quite amazing to observe the plurality of thoughts and to
perceive the diversity of goals from those who have searched
DOCOMOMO. There was no doubt that it was the opportunity to check
some “unquestionable trues” through an international and open debate
– a challenge that could be succeeded or not. Nevertheless, it was
1992 and no Brazilian institutions nor senior researchers have
responded the Hubert-Jan Henket appellation to organise a working
party here. Anna Beatriz has gone to DOCOMOMO Dessau conference just
to present a paper on the origins of the Brazilian modern
architecture. On the last day of the event, she was “intimated” to
establish a Brazilian group. Now she can admit that she received
that invitation as an obligation, because it was unconceivable to
see Brazil outside of that debate. By the other hand, there was a
serious question: how could be possible establish a true
working-party in such continental-broad country? Just one word has
moved the strategy: collectivity. A Brazilian network was started in
Salvador with the support of the Graduate Program in Architecture
and Urbanism of the Federal University of Bahia. Their first task
was to identify, through institutional contacts, those who were
working with the Modern Movement thematic (criticism, history,
preservation and so on). A few responses have come back, but they
were truly important to this very beginning and they resulted in the
first (and yet in progress) Brazilian DOCOMOMO Register. In 1995 it
was decided to organise a national seminar, the First Brazilian
DOCOMOMO Seminar. It was really a success, with the participation of
prominent researchers from the whole country, and a moment to put
together the state-of-the-art in the matter.
In an international panorama, this
“collective” strategy has promoted a significant participation of
Brazilian DOCOMOMO members in the International Specialist
Committees. The Urbanism Committee was proposed and first
co-ordinated by Marco Aurélio Gomes, Ana Fernandes and Anna Beatriz
–, as well as in the International DOCOMOMO Conferences with so many
papers to be evaluated by the Scientific Committees. The Sixth
DOCOMOMO International Conference, coordinated by Frederico Holanda
in Brasília, was another hard task. It allowed many DOCOMOMO members
(and MoMo agnostics) to experience both the city of Brasilia and a
country with so many outstanding modern architecture.
DOCOMOMO has a special profile that
matches actual interests in Brazil. Four national conferences were
organized (1995 and 1997 in Salvador, 1999 in São Paulo, 2001 in
Viçosa), the last two with about 250 people attendance. The foreign
invited speakers were Beatriz Colomina (Princeton University),
Eduardo Subirats (Princeton University), Francisco Liernur
(Argentina), Hubert-Jan Henket (DOCOMOMO International), Wessel de
Jonge (DOCOMOMO International), Mary McLeod (Columbia University),
Maristella Casciato (DOCOMOMO International), Helio Piñon (Politecnica
de Catalunya), Ola Wedebrunn (DOCOMOMO Denmark), Lilia Maure Rubio (Politecnica
de Madrid). The next biennial national conference will happen in
2003 in the city of São Carlos (São Paulo). One regional seminar, in
the state of São Paulo, was organized in 1998 by an active group in
São José dos Campos (a city in Paraiba Valley in the state of São
Paulo) and it is scheduled a second one in the city of Taubaté this
year. The São Paulo DOCOMOMO group also organized open meetings
pointing out some endangered buildings to the public opinion. Three
books published stamped DOCOMOMO logo: Rediscussing Modernism by
Luis Antonio Fernandes Cardoso and Olivia Fernandes de Oliveira
(UFBA, 1987, 302 p., Portuguese), Modernist Architecture in Porto
Alegre by Günter Weimer (Prefecture of Porto Alegre, 1998, 174 p.,
Portuguese) and Inventory of Modern Architecture in Paraiba Valley
by the São José dos Campos DOCOMOMO group (UBC/UNITAU/UNIVAP, 1997,
66. p., Portuguese/).
The national DOCOMOMO seminars mirror
the vitality of MoMo subjects. The audience of hundreds of
architects, professors, researchers, graduate and undergraduate
students reveals the increasing interest in Brazil on the study and
the recognition of the yet unknown modernity in the country. Most
papers deal with Architectural History, Register and Urbanism &
Landscape matters. The large participation stands out the
development of academic research in Master and Doctorate courses
over the country, mainly in Theory & History area, and all of them
demanding a forum for discussion of this scientific output. The
DOCOMOMO seminars are now one of the privileged national events with
this scientific profile.
Ten years after, it is possible to say
that DOCOMOMO Brazil has reached the majority, thanks to the support
and help from Paul Meurs, Ana Fernandes, Marco Aurélio Gomes, Anete
Araujo, Angela Pedrão, Naia Alban, Olivia de Oliveira, José Pessoa,
Frederico Holanda, Mirthes Baffi, Walter Pires, Ademir Pereira dos
Santos, Alexandre Penedo, Lucio Gomes Machado, Martha Camisassa,
Alejandra Muñoz, among many other special colleagues.
June 2002
Anna Beatriz Galvão was DOCOMOMO Brazilian working-party founder and
former coordinator (1992-1999), co-organizer of the VI International
DOCOMOMO Conference – Brasília 2000; Hugo Segawa is the DOCOMOMO
Brazilian working-party coordinator (2002-2003).
1
Article
published in DOCOMOMO JOURNAL, Delft, n. 27, p. 34-36, 2002.
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