Imagens dissolventes da narrativa de modernidade: interpretações sobre a tradição a partir de casos de demolições em Recife e Salvador (1909-1933)

Abstract

From the mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, the early urban plans of modernization were implemented, leading to the paradigmatic remodeling of Paris and later reforming Brazilian cities. In the process of transforming the image of capitals, the demolitions occupied a strategic paper, erasing selected parts of the formation cores through the opening of monumental avenues. The perception of transformation and time compression marked the collective imaginary, bringing up a great interest for the city, expressed in speeches of intellectuals, in speeches of technicians, in literature, in photographs and illustrations of the time. With the methodological theory of urban cultural history, it is proposed to make a reading of modernity from its wreckage, of what was swept away by the storm of progress. More specifically, we approach some of the demolitions between old houses, blocks of urban mesh and symbols devastated by modernization cycles. Against the belief in the new, there are a number of speeches linked to the old stones of the past that have few studied by the existing narratives. We used the methodological strategy to recount the processes, from the voices that accompanied the transformations of Recife and Salvador, cities with an expressive urban heritage from its early three centuries. There, already in the 1920s, we observe debates in defense of tradition and of the remnants from colonial cores, forming contexts favorable to the creation of state institutions to protect monuments. Thus, we show contributions, which are not only linked to the center-south, of the historical process of recognizing the value of exemplars, mainly from the colonial period, as representative of the national identity. Eventually the construction of speeches served as reference to structuring the federal preservation policy officially founded in Brazil in 1937.