(image by BBC)
It’s no secret that Sao Paulo’s crime statistics go virtually unparalleled worldwide. In fact, several news organizations, including the New York Times, annually revive the broad subject of crime in South America. On the other hand, Brazilian news agencies cover the details daily and with a sort of primeval intensity, with Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo supplying the majority of a seemingly unlimited stream of social unrest to draw from. Primetime news is shameless, featuring video footage of bloodstained ATMs as well as police forces shooting, killing and dragging bodies of fugitives from the context of favelas, or illegal settlements. The popular culture is obsessed with lavishly violent media and it only serves to augment the collective sense of fear. And it is effective; though I was never in any danger in Brazil at any time, I found myself carefully looking for the physical boundaries of society around me – the edges of security, or safety.
However, it is not only the media that perpetuate social barriers. The complex history of slavery and the affects of its abrupt abolition are at the center of present-day social inequities. Furthermore, the chaos and informality with which the country was settled contributed to patterns of social segregation. Sociologists and social-anthropologists abound in Brazil, with many if not all addressing in some way the affects of this history on contemporary society. The patterns of socio-economic stratification become increasingly complex over time, particularly during industrialization, when working classes migrate to cities, applying unprecedented pressure on resources, including housing, in urban areas. Sao Paulo exemplifies this rapid, chaotic transformation into modernity.
Urban Organization
For the first three hundred years of Sao Paulo´s develop, little occurred in the way of large-scale urbanization. Created in 1554 by a group of Jesuit missionaries, and officially a city in 1711, the settlement served little more than an outpost between the port city of Santos and the mythical destinations the bandeirantes sought inland. It was not until the middle of the 19th century when coffee production shifted from the state of Rio de Janeiro to the state of Sao Paulo that the city experienced a great flood of wealth and the migrants that followed. It was during this period, from the 1890s to the 1940s, that Sao Paulo first began to take shape.
Concentrated City (1)
The first period of development can be defined as a “concentrated city”. The wealthy and the poor occupied a small area that constituted the city. As the population increased with industrialization, so did the issues regarding how to monitor and control such growth. The elite and government officials attempted to employ Haussman-style urban reorganization, including ideas of controlling sanitation and infrastructure, as well the dimensional and occupational characteristics of public and private space (i.e. street widths and uses, building heights, etc.). Meanwhile, the wealthy removed themselves away from the poor areas associated with unsanitary conditions, a change that resulted in the creation of the neighborhoods Higienópolis, Campos Elísios and Avenida Paulista. It is important to note, that in these neighborhoods in which the wealthy lived, building codes and zoning were enforced, while the poorer neighborhoods went unregulated. As a result, a pattern of “legal ambivalence” arose that still exists today and is responsible for much of the informal settlements found all over the region.
During this period mud and straw construction began to give way to brick, at least for the wealthy. Coffee exportation continued and new goods arrived, including masonry materials from Western Europe, at least until production began at home. Walking around Sao Paulo today, there is no trace of the Sao Paulo constructed of mud and straw nor much of the Sao Paulo formed in brick. The coffee barons constructed many mansions displaying their wealth, but many of these, if not all, were destroyed to make way for the contemporary Sao Paulo.
At the end of this period several factors contributed to the following stage of urban organization. First, the Plano de Avenidas proposed the construction of a radial pattern of large avenues stretching beyond the center of the city. This major redevelopment drove out the poor, working classes and invested in roads and bus systems instead of the small, concentrated trolley system that already existed. Second, industrialists created organizations to study the working-class housing so as to improve their living conditions, in an attempt to remove the financial burden of factory-sponsored housing and promote private home ownership. Third, the Old Republic was overthrown as a result of the trade union movement along with others. Lastly, and as a result of the dissolution of the Old Republic, a new federal government came to power under the rule of Getúlio Vargas. Just as the industrialists had hoped to promote home ownership, so did Vargas. World War II and huge investments into urban infrastructure throughout Brazil triggered an economic crisis and a housing crisis followed. In response, Vargas froze rents, preventing little or no inflation adjustments. The working classes relocated to the periphery to find cheap land and began to construct their new homes.
Concrete and Modern Architecture
Brazilian modern architecture appeared near the end of the first phase of Sao Paulo’s urbanization. Modern architecture in Brazil is considered to have begun with the visit of Le Corbusier and the realization of the Ministry of Education and Health in 1936, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa with the obvious influence of, if not control by Le Corbusier. Beyond this point, modern architecture in Brazil became increasingly important, taking the form of many civic, institutional and infrastructural works. At the same time, concrete became the primary structural building material as it was relatively affordable, plastic and cheap labor was abundant. Brazil invested heavily in the material and as a result, Sao Paulo received its current classification as an urban “concrete jungle”.
Concrete, as well as red clay tiles or clay bricks (the color of nearly all Brazilian soil), are used indiscriminately for multiple types of projects. In other words, traveling from the wealthy center of Sao Paulo out to the favelas on the periphery, one can see that concrete is everywhere, as is the clay – it is used for condos, favelas, single-family homes, bus terminals, government buildings, commercial buildings, and so on. The only differences are the scale, speed of construction, complexity of form and spatial arrangements.
The working class has always used concrete as a framework for their home and the clay brick as infill. In a process called autoconstruction, a family will construct an initial concrete slab, columns and beams and slowly fill in the walls with clay bricks, leaving opening for windows and doors. Over time, as the family can afford to do so, they will add finishes to the interior and exterior walls and even add floors above. This type of construction – the form, the colors and materials – does not constitute a favela as writers about slums like Mike Davis or the countless commentators of authorless Google photos might have you believe. Instead, this is a type of vernacular building typology specific to Brazil and parts of other South American countries. It is often impossible to tell if an autoconstructed house is legal, that is, an official favela or not. However, what the autoconstructed houses do evoke is a raw image of Le Corbusier’s Domino House. Perhaps this is not surprising considering the country’s relationship with modern architecture.
In revered works of Brazilian architecture, concrete is utilized as a raw, monumental material capable of producing gravity-defying forms and enormous open spaces. Between Corbusier’s pilotis and the exhilarating perceptual effects of the cantilever, Brazilian architects appear to be constantly seeking an unearthly monumentality. Following the history of Brazil and its modern architecture, one can follow repeated attempts at employing architecture as a machine for producing an ideal society, or at least the hope or inspiration thereof. Brasilia is the most obvious example of this phenomenon, but smaller individual works from a variety of architects possess similar qualities.
In Sao Paulo, major works such as Lina Bo Bardi’s Museum of Art at Sao Paulo (MASP), Paulo Mendes de Rocha’s Museum of Brazilian Sculpture (MuBE), and aspects of Oscar Niemeyer’s Memorial of Latin America complex all bear similarities both in the use of materials and the resulting quality, or type of spaces. MASP and MuBE feature long, dynamic spans, and though they create different scales and are set in different contexts both seek to define a grand, monumental public space. Niemeyer’s complex does the same but less with obvious spans at the exterior of his buildings and rather with the vastness of the memorial plaza, not unlike the Monumental Axis of Brasilia.
Concrete is necessarily the national material of Brazil. It crosses socio-cultural boundaries and has been used in a variety of forms and contexts. Sao Paulo is but one catalogue of this indiscriminate use of materials.
Center-Periphery (2)
From the 1950s onward, Sao Paulo took on the form of the second phase of urban organization, the center-periphery model. During this period, the physical segregation of the population became more extreme. Both the working classes and the middle classes became homeowners, but through different processes.
Continued investment into road and bus systems combined with largely unregulated, illegal real-estate speculation triggered the migration of the majority of working classes to peripheral areas. The lack of regulation and consequential illegality of both sales and purchases of property during this period resonates to this day. Though much of the working class had become property owners during this time, or at least attempted to, much of it was through the illegal processes and loopholes of the real estate speculators. Even today, it is estimated that approximately 65 percent of the population of the city occupies illegal residences.
Meanwhile, the central area of the Sao Paulo experienced a concentration of middle and upper classes. The sea of condominiums defining Sao Paulo’s endless skyline today is a result of municipal zoning and construction regulations combined with federal policies controlling financing for the middle-income bracket. Many of the condos and office buildings extended southwest from the city center, from Avenida Paulista (a national and international business center), to Jardins (an upper-middle class residential neighborhood), to Faria Lima (a business and commercial center). However, the condo is a ubiquitous housing typology throughout Sao Paulo and can be found in nearly every district or neighborhood within the greater municipality. Nonetheless, there are spaces in which socio-economic classes begin to overlap, if only for a short period of time and in the appearance of informal configurations.
Material Flow – Global & Local Economies
The pattern to the southwest still continues today as can be seen in the area within Itaim Bibi bordering the Pinheiros River to the west. This new development features a commercial district along Avenida Luis Carlos Berrini with an enormous increase in office space, new hotels and retail space. The residences around this area are also changing. Specifically there is an increase condominium construction, but many one and two-story homes still exist.
Immediately adjacent to this area are pockets of favelas that follow Ave. Agua Espraiada east. The images above depict one favela immediately adjacent to the new bridge and Ave. Berrini. Within this small community are a group of catadors, or individuals who collect a variety of recyclable materials to sell to recycling companies and thus support themselves and their families. Though the government has yet to admit any groups of catadors as part of the greater Sao Paulo’s public services department, some are in the process of negotiation and legitimization.
Catadors haul recyclable material from all over the city via a trailer they manually tow around the city, usually during the night. Major recyclables are the same as in the U.S. or anywhere else – plastics, metals etc., but of particular value and importance in Brazil is aluminum. Brazil possesses the world’s third largest supply of bauxite, which is used to produce aluminum. The country also recycles one of the largest volumes of aluminum per year. It is one of Brazil’s most important industrial materials. With rapidly urbanizing countries such as China and India, Brazil’s position in the global aluminum economy is not likely to change any time soon.
The proposal below seeks to adopt catadors as members of the local government’s public service department. Under this proposal, catadors would become employees of the City of Sao Paulo and money would be invested into projects that create spaces for their carts, storage of materials and into developing patterns of settlement around these spaces. The result is a new live-work building typology particular to the catadors and their lifestyle. An alternative to government-sponsored funding could be to contract directly with recycling companies. In either scenario, the catador community profits through regular monthly income, but also through the development and legalization of their communities. Meanwhile, the process of recycling is streamlined, creating a competitive market for both catadors and recycling companies, while providing a steady supply of recycled aluminum for exportation or use within the country.
The site is wedged between Ave. Agua Espraiada to the south and a green space to the north. The green space is currently occupied by a small portion of favelas on the south edge and is used by some catadors for storage of materials and their trailers. To the west, a large tension-cable bridge spans the Pinheiros River and is nearly complete. To the northwest is the majority of new construction including modern office and commercial buildings of concrete, steel and glass stand tall, transforming Ave. Berrini into an urban canyon. The current property occupied by the favela is an important piece of real estate and unless integrated as a vital component of the neighborhood, the community will be displaced as simply as the other favelas already have.
The hybrid building type is two stories, but can extend vertically to become three to four stories as some typical autoconstructed residences do. The periphery of the first floor is dedicated to typical shops selling food, clothing and other goods. Additionally, this peripheral space includes storage space for catador trailers as well as family and community belongings. The interior of the first floor comprises the functional spaces for the catadors: a small entry space, unloading, baling and shipping. From one side, the taller, urban façade, catadors enter the structure and move into the unloading area. The aluminum and other recyclable materials are organized and stored until transferred to the baling area. Following the baling process, bales of recyclable material are loaded onto small, likely independently owned trucks and shipped to nearby recycling facilities.
The second level is composed of residences surrounding a courtyard potentially used for a variety of functions. This space could function as a small gardening spaces to grow local produce which would open space to provide natural light below and allow the community to be more self-sufficient. Alternately, the courtyard could become a small soccer field for children to play in (pictured); this is perhaps the more realistic outcome considering the intensity with which Brazilians value the sport. In any scenario, residents utilize a collective, but private space.
Concrete and clay-bricks are the primary building materials. Typically, a simple structural grid is in-filled with clay-bricks and reorganized over time as necessary. The catador building type does not deviate from this method, except that it proposes alternate uses of the clay-tile, exploring the orientation of individual bricks and the overall placement of the walls within the structural grid. The details of this type of masonry require additional craft, but offer a greater variety of spatial qualities employing the same material. Furthermore, Sao Paulo’s climate allows for open-air circulation year-round. As the community profits, additional forms of enclosure such as windows, plaster and other forms of insulation may be integrated. The catador building type is a starting point.
Overall, the intention of this proposal is to integrate an existing community into a larger development as an alternative to the typical strategies of relocation that perpetuate the process of large-scale segregation of Sao Paulo’s population. It attempts to do this by tying the existing micro-economy of the catadors to the macro-economy of Brazil’s international aluminum industry. At the same time, the proposal offers a new building typology that employs local materials and building methods, and the organization of which is the result of both local and global forces.
Gated Communities (3)
The third form of urban organization taking place in Sao Paulo is the migration of the upper-middle class from the center to the periphery. These new developments take the form of gated communities, also known as fortified enclaves. Continuing the historical pattern of urban segregation, a portion of the population has chosen to isolate itself from poorer sections, but not for fear of sanitation this time. Instead, the prevailing sense of violence and insecurity in the city of Sao Paulo has reinforced the stratification.
The neighborhoods are organized similarly to the contemporary American suburb and are either praised or abhorred for this reason depending on whom you talk to. Relatively large houses rest on their individual plots, unconnected and spread horizontally across rolling landscapes. Long, smooth driveways and carports face gently curving streets. Every aspect of their design echoes the typical American suburban home, (with maybe the exception materiality – instead of vinyl, they are all stucco or plaster, though one house was carefully shaped to mimic the horizontal serrations of vinyl siding).
The fortified enclave I visited is called Alphaville. It was the first in Sao Paulo and possesses all the qualities listed above (like the absence of vinyl and presence of the long, smooth driveway). I went there with a former professor of International Relations from the University of Sao Paulo. His name is Sergio and he is a smart man, also quite conservative – every day he bears the beige shirt and pants from his military days during the dictatorship ruling Brazil from 1964 to 1985. His good friend lives in Alphaville, so he took me for a visit.
There are no security fences or walls, no security cameras, no guard dogs, etc. surrounding each individual home. Each community just has one insurmountable wall around it, one or two heavily guarded entries, and residences (other functions of the city are outside the gated areas).
For my benefit, Sergio and his friend openly discussed their opinions (though in Portuguese) about the issues of living in this community. Sergio believes these developments are all American and that the big houses, strange openness and isolation do not belong in Brazil. His friend agreed that it is American and maybe a little strange, but that it meant safety for his family (I have to note that it was the only unlocked front door of a house in all of Brazil, or South America for that matter, that I have seen). This is the perpetual argument when considering any of the security measures around Sao Paulo.
A portion of the population wants to live in fortified enclaves so as to protect their children and raise a family without the sense of fear prevailing within the city of Sao Paulo. As major private developments, enclaves are often expensive to live in which means only the wealthier fraction of the population can afford to live there. The idea is that these developments are privately secured and funded; therefore the same community can control the rules and regulations that security enforces. As fortified enclaves increase, so does the propensity for private security. Thus a problem emerges as security shifts from the police officer/public servant paradigm to security guard/private servant.
The overwhelming sense of security is present in many forms besides the fortified enclave. More commonly, one sees it all over the city in other types of residential properties. Condominiums exist in nearly all parts of the city. They rise up on Corbusian pilotis, with the apartments deliberately separated from the ground plane. Property boundaries are defined with some form of security fencing – steel fences, concrete walls topped with broken glass and both often topped with barbed wire or electric wire. The more expensive condos typically have one pedestrian entrance with a booth and a security guard and one gated vehicular entrance to the garage below. Unless you live there or know someone who does, it is impossible to enter the property, which of course is the whole point. Additionally, individual residences often take the form of two-storey row houses with a garage below facing the street and residence above. When these houses are not bordering the street, a separate layer of fencing defines the property edge.
Other individual residences sit on individual lots and are surrounded by large opaque walls and are heavily secured. These are only in the very wealthy neighborhoods as in sections of Jardins. It is an odd feeling to walk in the middle of a residential area with beautiful homes, supposedly some of the most interesting contemporary architecture in the city, but then all you see are enormous blank walls, each with one darkly tinted window – the guard’s looking glass.
Thus, new environments emerge that are characteristically undemocratic and reject the freedoms of public space valued in any society. If architecture is a gauge that expresses the values of a society, then a portion of the population that can afford this expression has chosen enclosure and separation.
Globalization and Privatization
For Sao Paulo, globalization is a pattern of development that often reinforces existing forms of social stratification in Brazilian society. Wealth pours into the country, into the same hands and architecture follows suit by assuming its familiar role as an expression of this wealth. Being well off is not a crime, nor is it necessarily undemocratic, but as a result of the collage of Brazil’s complex social conditions, partially affected by its relationship to the global community as it relates on the local community, democratic space and social equality are left vulnerable. Specifically, physical and psychological boundaries are formed.
The reality of security in Sao Paulo is two-fold. The first reality exists in the form of the evolving private security sector. Those who can afford it, tend to feel safer with the presence of additional security measures such as cameras, physical barriers, and private security guards (which was recently reported as one of the fastest growing employment sectors in Sao Paulo). As this trend continues, combined with problems embedded in state and municipal security forces, those who can afford any form of private security have it. As a byproduct, the second reality is formed: an entire cityscape that serves as a sort of urban-scale panopticon. While there are certainly forms of crime and violence in Sao Paulo that require security measures, the continual division of space through physical barriers, cameras etc. produces an environment, an urban panopticon that alienates segments of the population. The forms of public space typical of a democratic society are therefore threatened.
Architecture is not the proper instrument to restructure this pattern. In fact, one can see that Brazil already attempted to force transformations of social relationships through architecture. During colonization, the churches of Catholic expansion were tools employed to control segments of society. Occidental hierarchies were established through the oppression of people whose cultures valued different social relationships, and the church was the means by which these hierarchies were both expressed and implemented. In the middle of the 20th century, the new capital of Brasilia was supposed to equalize the population by removing these hierarchies and forcing completely new, unnatural social relationships. Now in Sao Paulo, and many other South American cities, these hierarchies are manifest in new forms, particularly in the form of aggressive boundaries.
Thus, in a democratic society architecture should not attempt to impose new relationships between socio-economic classes. It can, however, offer new alignments that respect differences but honor equality among different people. And it can do this amidst the seemingly immovable forces of globalization.
