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THREE PLANS FOR THRETHREE PLANS FOR THRETHREE PLANS FOR THRETHREE PLANS FOR THREE EMERGİNG SOUTH E EMERGİNG SOUTH E EMERGİNG SOUTH E EMERGİNG SOUTH AMERİCAN METROPOLİSEAMERİCAN METROPOLİSEAMERİCAN METROPOLİSEAMERİCAN METROPOLİSES, 1923S, 1923S, 1923S, 1923----1930: ANALYTİCAL 1930: ANALYTİCAL 1930: ANALYTİCAL 1930: ANALYTİCAL FRAMEWORKS FOR PLAN FRAMEWORKS FOR PLAN FRAMEWORKS FOR PLAN FRAMEWORKS FOR PLAN NOEL (BUENOS AİRES),NOEL (BUENOS AİRES),NOEL (BUENOS AİRES),NOEL (BUENOS AİRES), PLANO AGACHE (RİO DEPLANO AGACHE (RİO DEPLANO AGACHE (RİO DEPLANO AGACHE (RİO DE JANEİRO) AND PLANO JANEİRO) AND PLANO JANEİRO) AND PLANO JANEİRO) AND PLANO DE DE DE DE AVENİDAS (SÃO PAULO)AVENİDAS (SÃO PAULO)AVENİDAS (SÃO PAULO)AVENİDAS (SÃO PAULO)....

VINÍCIUS LUZ DE LIMAVINÍCIUS LUZ DE LIMAVINÍCIUS LUZ DE LIMAVINÍCIUS LUZ DE LIMA Address: Rua Sílvia, 146, ap. 35, Bela Vista, São Paulo – SP, CEP 01331-010, Brasil e-mail: [email protected]

CANDIDO MALTA CAMPOSCANDIDO MALTA CAMPOSCANDIDO MALTA CAMPOSCANDIDO MALTA CAMPOS NETO NETO NETO NETO Address: Rua da Consolação, 896, 3º andar, sala 311, Edifício João Calvino, Consolação, São Paulo – SP, CEP 01302-907, Brasil e-mail: [email protected]

Between 1920 and 1930, urban modernization of the largest South American cities required more ambitious interventions which would promote them to the stage of efficient metropolises, leading to a demand for “comprehensive plans” as technical and ideological articulations of this passage. Relying preferably, but not always, on foreign consultants, during this period major plans were drawn for Buenos Aires (Plan Noel, 1923-1925), Rio de Janeiro (Plano Agache, 1928-1930) and São Paulo (Plano de Avenidas, 1927-1930).

Different contexts and professional articulations resulted in essentially diverse documents; but a common analytical framework focusing on distinctive moments (conception, discussion, and implementation of proposals) can point out contacts, analogies and interfaces between them. All relied on European and North American experiences as well as proposals already present in local debates.

For Buenos Aires, the Comisión de Estética Edilícia co-ordinated a plan (1923-1925) known as “Plan Noel”, with the collaboration of french landscape architect Jean-Claude-Nicolas Forestier, who proposed an innovative system of green areas connected by multi-lane boulevards, criticized by local technicians who insisted on monumental arrangements and mmore conventional avenues.

Rio de Janeiro’s municipality hired French architect and urbanist Donat-Alfred Agache, whose plan (1928-1930), proposed structural circulation systems and green areas associated with zoning, designing residential and commercial neighborhoods, the latter combining academic principles and American inspired high-rises, for a modern, metropolitan city center.

In São Paulo, the civil engineer and architect Francisco Prestes Maia was commissioned by the city to prepare the Plano de Avenidas (1930). Drawing from a vast array of international examples, Maia adopted a radial-perimetric structure in which any number of existing propositions could be inserted, making way for automobile traffic and favoring urban expansion, both horizontal – the ever-growing periphery, accessed by radial roads and bus lines – and vertical, sponsoring disciplined verticalization along broad new avenues.

C i t i e s , n a t i o n s a nd r e g i o ns i n p l a n n i n g h i s t o r yC i t i e s , n a t i o n s a nd r e g i o ns i n p l a n n i n g h i s t o r yC i t i e s , n a t i o n s a nd r e g i o ns i n p l a n n i n g h i s t o r yC i t i e s , n a t i o n s a nd r e g i o ns i n p l a n n i n g h i s t o r y

In a period of intense exchange of proposals and urbanistic experiences, South America was one of the laboratories for experimenting these solutions; however, planning ideas were selected, translated and adapted according to local demands and interests, with unequal results, removed from the originally imported conceptions..

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

This paper derives from an international research project financed by Brazilian Federal Agency CNPq and Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa – Mackpesquisa focused on the passages of urban planning ideas among major South American cities: Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, since the beginning of the 20th century; involving the transit of planning model and references, the contribution of foreign consultants, and the recourse to foreign examples and experiences. The present work focuses specifically on three important plans developed for these cities approximately at the same time, during the 1920’s, which can be considered among the major planning documents drawn up in South America in the first half of the century.

The international dissemination of modern urbanism in the 1920s and 30s was spurred by an ever-growing demand for new levels of functionality and monumentality. In South America, this meant promoting existing agroexporting capital cities to the stage of efficient metropolises. This passage required an enlarged scope of intervention based on comprehensive plans, supplanting the partial improvement schemes prevalent from 1880 to 1910. So from 1920 the urban planning debate in major Latin American cities spelled out the urgent necessity of “general plans” to guide this urban transformation (Campos, 2002, pp.376-377).

Relying preferably, but not always, on foreign consultants, during this period major plans were drawn for Buenos Aires (Plan Noel, 1923-1925), Rio de Janeiro (Plano Agache, 1928-1930) and São Paulo (Plano de Avenidas, 1927-1930).

For Della Paolera (1929 apud Liernur, Aliata, 2004, p.75) modern urbanism had distinguished "plano" from "plan": In Spanish, the first meant a graphical representation of transformations planned for a new or existing city, while "plan" stood for a comprehensive array of interventions and representations of the city's problems.

The modern ideal plan would articulate a number of projects, plans and programs along extended periods to achieve the expected urban transformation, controlling human actions by conscious and rational methods. This view overrides the idea of simply building planned cities (Portoghesi, 1969 apud Liernur and Aliata, 2004, p.75).

In Europe and North America, the urge for cromprehensive plans based on up-to-date planning principles had already been catalyzed by iniatives such as the British Town Planning Act of 1909, the American City Planning Movement, and particularly the French Loi Cornudet of 1919, requiring master plans for all significantly sized cities.


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Different contexts and professional articulations resulted in essentially diverse documents; but a common analytical framework focusing on distinctive moments (conception, discussion, and implementation of proposals) can point out contacts, analogies and interfaces between them. All relied on European and North American experiences as well as proposals already present in local debates.

Our analytical frameworks will provide a quick look at the basic components in each plan, organized according to Alicia Novick’s suggestion, presented in our research group encounter in Buenos Aires in 2010: to trace how proposals evolve from theory to practice through a series of mediations involving the technical milieu, the larger public debate, the spheres of legislation, and their final implementation, by means of public and private works - sometimes following closely the initial conceptions, sometimes transforming them into almost irrecgonizable adaptations; always serving dominant interests, and expressing the balance of power among conflicting social forces.

PLAN NOEL (1925), BUPLAN NOEL (1925), BUPLAN NOEL (1925), BUPLAN NOEL (1925), BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINENOS AIRES, ARGENTINENOS AIRES, ARGENTINENOS AIRES, ARGENTINAAAA

As in Rio de Janeiro, the city of Buenos Aires was the object of study to represent the expression of the aesthetic sense intended to achieve social and intellectual progress, symbolizing the presence of modernity in Argentina. To this end, Carlos Noel, then Mayor of Buenos Aires, set up the Comisión de Estética y Edilica (CEE) with municipal and federal professionals to prepare the general plan of the city: the architect Martín Noel (President of the Comision Nacional de Bellas Artes and Carlos Noel’s brother), the French architect René Karman, the Italian Count Morra (President of the Society of Architects), the engineer Victor Spotta (Municipality), the engineer Sebastian Ghigliazza (Ministry of Public Works of the Nation), and the designer Ernesto Vautier. French landscape architect Jean-Claude-Nicolas Forestier was hired as a special consultant (Intendencia Municipal, 1925).

Martín Noel, also known by his researches and projects concerning colonial architecture in Spanish America, was well-informed regarding the international urban planning debate and was familiar with the work of Le Corbusier and Tony Garnier (Gutierrez, 2007).

Conception

Technical sphere

Plan Noel Synthesis Map. Source:

Intendencia Municipal, 1925.

Topographical map. Source:

Intendencia Municipal, 1925.


Conception

Technical sphere

- City history / Unity and eficciency of circulation - Conflict point solutions (modern city) - Sanitation – garden-city and garden-neighborhoods - Avenidas-paseo and monumental squares and districts

Discussion in public sphere

- Association between the Municipality and the Federal Government and between the CEE and the consultant Forestier - Urban aesthetics x precarious social and housing conditions - French academicism and working-class districts

Legislation

- Lei de Urbanismo - French expirience and the Plano de Estética Edilícia elaborated in Buenos Aires (1923 e 1928) - Influence in the Building Code of 1928 e and the Building Code of 1944 (Gutiérrez, 2007).

To Vedia (1999, p.18), five points summarize the Plan Noel: the respect for the historical setting of the city, the efficiency of the old traffic routes, the decongestion of the points of conflict characteristic of modern urban centers, the avenidas-paseo associated with garden-areas, the city being sanitized with the feature of the garden-city model, as it moves away from the center, and the articulation of squares and monumental core to large arterial roads, promoting the diversification of activities on roads.

Although the plan provided for the establishment of workers' quarters, it was more focused on aesthetic issues and embellishing the city. The influence of urban French academicism led to the deterioration of social conditions and a a housing shortage (Vedia, 1999; Gutiérrez, 2007). The plan was also a precedent for the Urban Planning Act of 1938 (Gutiérrez, 2007).

Avenidas-paseo

Sectioned perspective for avenue project with 70 meters of width. Source:

Intendencia Municipal, 1925 Technical sphere

.

Sectioned perspective for avenue with bicycle path project. Source: Intendencia

Municipal, 1925.


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Avenidas-paseo


- Structure – urban marks and surrounding cities conection - Unity to the city (squares, streets, avenues) - Districted city division / future different zones

The plan proposed the avenidas-paseos as a means to achieve the sanitation of the city, a mix of park and urban road which would be the main communication structure, connecting the landmarks, making up a constellation of arteries with internal and external connections to other cities around Buenos Aires (Intendencia Municipal,1925). The issue of squares, main streets and avenues would give the city a morphological unity, promoting a sectorization which would lead to future zoning measures (Vedia, 1999, p. 111).

Park areas

Technical sphere

Buenos Aires’ Parks system

Intendencia Municipal, 1925

- Cultural and material city values - Public spaces - parks and gardens projects in Northernern and South regions - Forestier + CEE


-Forestier (American city beautiful + english garden-cities + French tradition) - modern planning - Free spaces and green áreas system - metropolitan network / conurbation x local opinios

Avenida Costanera Norte (CEE x Forestier)

Technical sphere

Project of the Comisión de Estética Edilicia.

Source: Intendencia Municipal, 1925.

Forestier’s landscape project

(1924). Source: Intendencia

Municipal, 1925.


- Underground transportation - Recreation and sports joined


Dividing the city into two broad areas (north and south), the plan provided for 55 projects related to parks and the main road structure, valuing public spaces that should meet the growing population, combining the ideas of CEE and of the French landscape artist Forestier. The two areas would provide for the division of the city into sectors (Vedia, 1999, p.111, 120).

In terms of landscaping projects, the highlight of the plan is the Costanera Norte, marked by criticism of the CEE in relation to Forestier’s project, resulting in two projects: the CEE proposed underground public transportation and encouraged the occupation of land at higher altitudes, while Forestier ´presents a project that would innovate by combining recreation with sports activities and walks, not only on Costanera Norte but also in all parks built since the nineteenth century, upgrading public spaces(Vedia, 1999, p.119, 123).

Projects for important places

Conception

Urban intervention project for Mayo

Square. Source: Intendencia Municipal,

1925.

Urban intervention project for Mayo

Square. Source: Intendencia

Municipal, 1925.

Conception

Project for the Plaza del Congresso.

Source: Intendencia Municipal, 1925.

Estación Constitución Reconstruction

project. Source: Intendencia Municipal,

1925.

Beyond the issues of circulation and urban parks, the plan sought to express the stage of democratic progress in Argentina with impressive architectural projects, such as the three powers of government buildings and urban projects for monumental spaces with strong symbolic qualities: Avenida de Mayo, Plaza de Mayo and Plaza del Congresso. It highlights the importance of public spaces,


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treating squares and parks as centers of power and prestige, linked to the structural design proposed by the CEE, resulting in the “Proyecto Organico para La Urbanización del Municipio - El Plano Regulador y de Reforma de La Capital Federal”.

PLANO AGACHE (1927PLANO AGACHE (1927PLANO AGACHE (1927PLANO AGACHE (1927----30), RIO DE JANEIRO,30), RIO DE JANEIRO,30), RIO DE JANEIRO,30), RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL BRAZIL BRAZIL BRAZIL

The Agache Plan was prepared by the French architect and city planner Alfred Agache Donat-Hubert, hired in 1927 by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Prado Junior. Initially, it was drawn in an office in Rio de Janeiro, composed by local technicians working under Agache; it was completed in Paris in 1930. In the 1930s, after substantial alterations, it was implemented by the mayor Henrique Dodsworth (1937-1945)(Stuckenbruck, 1996, p.112).

Despite being branded as an "imported" plan, it was approved by a committee formed in the 1930s by local experts such as Armando de Godoy, Henrique de Novais, Lucio Costa, Archimedes Memória, Angelo Bruhns, Raul Pederneiras and José Mariano (Cardeman, 2006).

“But if urban planning is a science, it is also an art. It falls, indeed, to the city planner to interpret observations and supply needs by scientific and technical means, in a cadre of harmony and beauty” (Agache, 1930, p. 8).

Conception

Technical sphere

“Five fingers” scheme for the road

structure. Source: Agache, 1930.

Future express transportation scheme.

Source: Agache, 1930.


- Global vision of the city + morphology of the territory - French École de Beaux Arts + American City Beautiful - Execution by a Permanent Public Office - control the public and private companies actions - Transportation system as the city limits

Legislation - Contributed to the conception of the Rio de Janeiro Building Code of 1937 (Berdoulay, 2003)


Conception

Builds - Road skeleton to future realizations (Andreatta, 2008) - Highways improvements: Rio - Petrópolis and Rio - São Paulo

Andreatta (2008) points out that the plan brought a pioneering view, in treating the entire urbanized area of the city under a global vision for dealing with infrastructure, circulation, urban services, connecting neighborhoods and zoning, respecting the geography of the city and considering the metropolitan context. It provided a road structure associated with zoning directives, specifying standards for each use and type of building, and innovated by adopting the garden-city model to the suburbs, having as references French urbanisme, aesthetic principles inherited from the Ècole de Beaux Arts and the American City Beautiful Movement, combined with a modern, functional approach regarding transportation, housing, sanitation and open spaces.

For Agache, the growth of the urban area depended on the transport system and its regional coverage (Oliveira, 2009, p. 42). Among the achievements are the improvements on the roads from Rio to Petrópolis and to São Paulo (Stuckenbruck, 1996, p. 112).

Zoning

Technical sphere

Zoning map. Source: Agache, 1930, p;?.


- Detailed zoning proposed by the mjunicipality and approved by law - Maintenance of neighborhood features and respect for urban morphology - Protection of economic assets: industrial areas, port - Leisure, contemplation, sports and public health


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Espaços livres e áreas arborizadas

Technical sphere

Free spaces and wooded areas map

Agache, 1930


- Countryside and free spaces - urban landscape’s elements - Infrastructures improvements (private interest) - Free spaces (public interest)

The zoning proposal was intended to maintain the features of the neighborhoods and the protection of the value of private property, which would result in protecting the economy and public health.There were five types of zones: the central and commercial, the industrial and port, the residencial, the suburban, and the open spaces and wooded reserves. This zoning would be detailed by the Office of Works and Transport and subject to approval by law (Oliveira, 2009, p.70).

Agache highlitghed that urbanism was a science, an art and mainly a social philosophy (Agache, 1930). Therefore, the clearances had greater importance for the city because they were related to the public interest of the community, being more prominent in the master plan, in relation to improvements in infrastructure, which although they were also required for the city, met the interests of individuals (Oliveira, 2009, p.67).

Castelo District and Verticalization

Technical sphere

Brazil’s Gate by Cortez & Bruhns.


New neighborhood and walkways –

Castelo, Calabouço, Beira-mar e Glória.



Castelo District and Verticalization


Monumental center and business

district near central area. Source:

Agache, 1930.

Castelo Esplanade and Calabouço Edge.



Verticalized building project for

Castelo Square. Source:

Agache,1930.

Section of verticalized building proposal

for Castelo Square. Source: Agache,

1930.

Another striking aspect of the Agache Plan is that in it projects are considered as functional elements (palaces and ministries, Business Centers and Trade, Ports, Industries, Home Zones and Districts, University) and especially the imposing Gate of Brazil (based on a previous project by Cortez & Brunhs), the new central business district at Castelo, combining conventional monumentality, European city blocks, and high-rise elements inspired by American skyscrapers (Agache, 1930).

PLANO DE AVENIDAS (1PLANO DE AVENIDAS (1PLANO DE AVENIDAS (1PLANO DE AVENIDAS (1930), SÃO PAULO, B930), SÃO PAULO, B930), SÃO PAULO, B930), SÃO PAULO, BRAZILRAZILRAZILRAZIL

In São Paulo, urban modernization was sponsored by an elite that toyed with modernism and other aesthetic and functional solutions, as long as they gave form to the exponential growth that quickly put this former provincial town on a par with Rio de Janeiro and other South American capitals vying for regional, national, and continental supremacy. Both traditional and emerging dominant groups favored urban expansion, with large stakes in high-rise building and extensive subdivisions multiplying the urban perimeter. In 1911 French consultant Bouvard had shrewdly conciliated local real estate interests with the municipality’s Sittean embellishment proposals; Parisian-style boulevards, grand residential avenues and modern thalveg


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parkways were all envisioned as solutions for the city´s meagre road system. Le Corbusier’s visit in 1929 was employed as another argument for rapid arteries and verticalization (Campos, 2002, p. 376).

In São Paulo, city technicians were pushing for a more comprehensive plan to supplant Bouvard’s 1911 schemes at least since the late 1910s. At first, Sitte-inspired City Works Director Victor Freire commissioned a young municipal engineer, Joâo Florence de Ulhôa Cintra, to draw up a preliminary plan, centered, as always, on road and traffic improvements; in 1921 Cintra came up with an ambitious proposal based on Eugène Hénard’s studies of radial-perimetric road systems (Hénard, 1905). He devised a large circular belt of broad avenues, circumventing the old downtown area, which was perched on a small hill and deemed too small for a metropolitan central business district.

The idea, named “Perímetro de Irradiação” was sent to the City Council in 1922 and published in 1924 (Cintra, 1924). At the same time, a city-state planning commission was set up, in which Cintra met a young civil engineer and architect that worked for the State government, Francisco Prestes Maia. This meeting would have a lasting impact on local planning: soon after, from 1924 to 1926, the basic guidelines of a comprehensive plan for São Paulo were drawn and published by Cintra and Maia (Maia & Cintra, 1924-1926). Coffee-based prosperity, and the example of the Agache Plan being prepared for Rio de Janeiro, spurred the city towards even more ambitious goals; so in 1927, the Municipality of São Paulo, represented by Cintra, who chaired the Tietê River Improvement Committee, commissioned Prestes Maia to come up with a full-scale plan based on his radial-perimetric scheme, the Perimetro de Irradiação and the 1924-1926 studies (Somekh and Campos Neto, 2002).

Conception

Radial-perimetric scheme

Technical sphere

Hénard’s theoretical schemes for

radial-perimetric structures, applied to

São Paulo by Ulhôa Cintra. Source:

Somekh e Campos Neto, 2002, p.57

Prestes Maia’s radial-perimetric

Theoretical Scheme for São Paulo,

developed from the preceding schemes.

Source: Somekh e Campos Neto, 2002.


Conception

Radial-perimetric scheme

Discussion in the

technical sphere

Cintra’s Perimeter of Irradiation, 1924.

Source: Campos, 2002.

Maia’s Perimeter of Irradiation, 1930.


Discussion in the public sphere

- American, French and German planning references (Lewis, Hénard, Stübben) - Radial-perimetric scheme = central irradiation perimeter + radial road system + outer perimetric rings - Expansion of the old downtown area - Adaptation of original design in order to avoid built-up areas and priorize traffic flow instead of monumental symmetry.

Its publication in 1930 came right before a major political upheaval that deposed the politicians behind the initiative. Nevertheless, Maia’s work was destined to play a huge role in São Paulo planning. It was named, rather modestly, as Introdução ao Estudo de um Plano de Avenidas para a Cidade de São Paulo (Maia, 1930), but its extensive contents covered every subject, resorted to every conceivable foreign and domestic example, incorporated practically all individual propositions being discussed in São Paulo at the time, each of them cleverly inserted in its comprehensive radial-perimetric scheme, formed by radial avenues connected by succesive circular ring-roads; so that the whole resulted remarkably coherent, even with the accumulation of so many existing ideas and proposals (Leme, 1990; Somekh and Campos Neto, 2002).

The Plano de Avenidas also proposed a number of improvements connecting, articulating and completing the organization of the road system in São Paulo, as well as a radial bus transport system accessing the expanding periphery and supllanting the existing tramway network (Somekh and Campos Neto, 2002). Even though no foreign consultants were hired, Maia’s extensive knowledge of European and American experiences supported his ideas and arguments in terms of the international urban debate.


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Radiais (Av. Nove de Julho) Perimetrais

Technical sphere

Radial-perimetric scheme: roads

planned. Source: Somekh e Campos

Neto, 2002, p.?.

Perimetric ring-roads and parkways.

Source: Campos, 2002, p.?

Legislation

Heights and setbacks defined for

different parts of Av. Nove de Julho.


Recently opened Avenida Nove de

Julho in 1945. Source: Campos, 2002.


Prestes Maia, then mayor presents

his plan in 1942. Source: Campos,

2002.

Mayor Prestes Maia is saluted by São

Paulo Industrial Federation president

Roberto Simonsen. Source: Campos,

2002.

Builds

Roadworks undertaken in the central

area, 1938-1945: Perimeter of

Irradiation, System “Y”, main

radials. Source: Campos, 2002.

Photo of Chá Viaduct and Anhangabaú

Park. Source: Somekh e Campos Neto,

2002.


As we can see, in the transition from the original proposition to the actual intervention, each proposal undergoes a serie of adaptations, reformulations, enhancements (or simplifications) and negotiations before it comes into being as public works and/or legislation.

The main component of the Plano de Avenidas was the Perimeter of Irradiation, an idea of Ulhôa Cintra developed by Prestes Maia, which consisted of a ring road around the historic center that would expand the central area and organize a radial-flow perimeter, and so facilitate overall urban expansion along radial axes (Somekh and Campos Neto, 2002).

After the convoluted politics of the 1930s, with a series of short-lived mayors, mayor Fabio Prado (1934-1938) rationalized municipal administration and shored city finances, making way for Prestes Maia himself, appointed mayor by the Estado Novo dictatorship in 1938. Immeadiately he began a full-scale implementation of his plan’s main features: the Perímetro de Irradiação, formed by a series of viaducts and the enlargement of existing streets; the principal radial roads, enlarged or prolonged; the sistema “Y” crossing the central area by a major highway that bifurcates towards the South; other large-scale demolitions making room for bus terminals, squares, monuments, bridges… (Leme, 1990).

Verticalization

Conception

One alternative for City Hall: above

Anhangabaú Valley and in Campos Elísios.

Source: Campos, 2002

One alternative for City Hall:

above Anhangabaú Valley

and in Campos Elísios.


Technical sphere

Disciplined verticalization proposal along

Tietê River. Source: Somekh e Campos Neto,

2002

Generic scheme for arterial

road with verticalization.



- Principles: hygiene, aesthetics, technical and rational public performance (Leme, 1990)


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One of the hallmarks of the Plano de Avenidas for São Paulo is that it served as the basis for the unlimited horizontal and vertical growth of the city, supported by Maia’s radial-perimetric road system, with great potential for urban expansion (Somekh and Campos Neto, 2002 p.64). Still, the plan’s structure left little or no place for social concerns, conspicuously absent or supplanted by the pervading objectives relates to vehicular traffic, road system, verticalization, expansion of the central area and urban expansion as a whole.

Verticalization

Maximum height facing street

(according to street width)

Maximum height with setbacks

Zone Street width < 12 meters

Street width > 12

meters

Street width less

than 12 meters

Street width

between 12 and 18

meters

Streets wider than 18

meters

Central zone (defined by the Perimeter of Irradiation)

2 times the street width

2,5 times the street width

40 meters

60 meters

80 meters

Avenida Ipiranga

39 meters or eleven stories (minimum

height)

115 meters (135 meters in crossings with streets wider

than 30 meters)

Selected avenues

39 meters or eleven stories (minimum

height) 80 meters

Perimeter of irradiation

22 meters or six stories (minimum

height) 80 meters

Legislation

Source: São Paulo Municipal Decrees nº 41, August 3, 1940; nº 75, February 11,

1941; and nº 92, May 2, 1941.

Builds

Hotel Excelsior and

Cine Ipiranga, by Rino

Levi, 1942. Source:

Campos, 2002.

View from Parque Dom

Pedro II with Banco do

Estado. Source: Campos,

2002.

Palácio Mauá by Prestes

Maia, 1946. Source:

Campos, 2002.


The Plano de Avenidas represents a moment of inlexion between former practices oriented by urban hygiene, aesthetics and road-building, and a modern, integrated approach. In Maia’s unique methodology all aspects of city life are defined by their insertion in the general scheme, and therefore contribute to legitimize the plan’s options for automobile transport, for unlimited urban expansion, for disciplined verticalization, and for a discreet, Art Déco monumentality. It contrives to mix previously discussed solutions and new ones (Leme, 1990), but its strict coherence achieved a result which is larger than the sum of its parts, and managed to impose itself as a potent diagram for urban interventions in São Paulo that is still being followed eight decades later, even though radial elements are now regional highways, and its current perimeter the Rodoanel, girdling the metropolitan area.

THE SEARCH FOR MODERTHE SEARCH FOR MODERTHE SEARCH FOR MODERTHE SEARCH FOR MODERNITY IN SOUTH AMERICNITY IN SOUTH AMERICNITY IN SOUTH AMERICNITY IN SOUTH AMERICAN PLANNINGAN PLANNINGAN PLANNINGAN PLANNING

The urban plans prepared for the cities of São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, in the years 1920-30, had in common imported urban principles adapted to the realities of each city:

- The emergence of the automobile and the urban bus as the main modes of transportation, at the expense of older tramway or train systems, requiring huge investments in road opening and enlargement of existing roads;

- The expansion of central business districts, with the creation of new, modern and downtown areas adjacent to the existing central nucleus, with broad throughfare, and large parcels providing space for modern office and institutional buildings; particularly in São Paulo (Centro Novo) and Rio de Janeiro (Castelo District);

- Zoning, to order the growth and development of neighborhoods and cities, ´particularly in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires;

- Systems of public green areas, seeking to sanitize the city and offer recreation and physical activities for the population, and neighborhoods inspired by English and American garden suburbs, particularly in São Paulo;

- The concern with social integration of urban populations by means of hygienic measures, health, educational and recreation equipaments, and disciplinarian prescriptions for civil coexistence, particularly in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires;

- Sanitation, in terms of water supply, drainage and sewage disposal, a concern with rivers, lakes, water sources and reservoirs (and beaches, in the case of Rio), aeration, insolation (prescribed by building codes), and the use of green spaces and garden neighborhoods as “lungs” for the city;

- Monumentality, expressed by means of urban composition, drawing from French academicism, baroque precedent, or American City Beautiful examples, enhancing the city center with interventions of powerful symbolism, that value urban aesthetics, as representing the civic character of the nation, particularly in Buenos Aires;

- Verticalization, attempting to discipline high-rise buildings with minimum and maximum heights, setbacks, combinations between compact city blocks and towers, simplified ornamentation, rules of composition, proportion and symmetry, creating focal points and other resources of urban architecture;


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- Aesthetic modernization, as a conciliatory position between the excesses of avant-garde modernism and the exhausted historicist repertoire of Beaux Arts tradition.

These plans of the 1920s represent not only the translation and adaptation of foreign urban ideals, as practiced throughout South America, but can be considered as strategic attempts to show how these cities could be more favorably inserted in the international economic scene, besting each other in the dispute for continental primacy, and attaining better positions in the regional, national, continental, and global urban networks, a goal which was as pressing then as it is now.

In a period of intense exchange of proposals and urbanistic experiences, South America was one of the laboratories for experimenting these solutions; however, planning ideas were selected, translated and adapted according to local demands and interests, with unequal results, removed from the originally imported conceptions.

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