Da formação carioca à prática potiguar: estratégias projetuais na arquitetura residencial do arquiteto Moacyr Gomes na década de 1970

Abstract

This research deals with the architectural production of the potiguar architect Moacyr Gomes da Costa (born 1927), an important personage in the consolidation process of Modern Architecture in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, as it aims to identify his design characteristics as well as analyze his work in the Brazilian regional and national context, through the investigation of house designs, which represent a fragment of his production. The study comprehends a group of ten houses – built, never built or demolished - designed for the cities of Natal and João Pessoa, from 1955 to 1977, even if the research’s main focus are the houses of the 1970’s. We adapted, to the purposes of the present study, a number of methods which have been organized by Amaral (2004), who has based her study on the reinterpretation of the Vitruvian Triad (firmitas, vesnustas, utilitas) in order to define the elements of her analysis. We added the aspects related to the place to our method, as suggested by Mahfuz (2003), leading to the following aspects which are considered in our study: place, function, construction and form-space. Primary data used in this research include graphical material (drawings, photographs, sketches) collected in public and/or private archives; the author’s interviews with the architect or his views and opinions available in periodicals and other academic studies; and finally, testimonies of some of his clients, which helped clarify some points about the design decisions taken in the projects. The research findings indicate a set of design strategies and solutions that the author adopts regularly (as well as his partners) in the conception of his projects. The analyses of such projects show that his solutions are mainly related to sociocultural aspects (conventions, the families’ way-of-life and habits) in the context to which the architect designs. They also result, at the same time, from several references and previous experiences, as well as from his cultural background and from that of his work partners.