Planning Latin America's Capital Cities
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«o Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850-1950 cs edited by Arturo Almandoz First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2002 Selection and editorial matter: Arturo Almandoz; individual chapters: the contributors Typeset in Garamond by PNR Design, Didcot, Oxfordshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk This book was commissioned and edited by Alexandrine Press, Oxford All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any informa tion storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library o f Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-415-27265-3 ca Contents *o Foreword by Anthony Sutcliffe vii The Contributors ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Introduction 1 Arturo Almandoz 2 Urbanization and Urbanism in Latin America: from Haussmann to CIAM 13 Arturo Almandoz I CAPITALS OF THE BOOMING ECONOMIES 3 Buenos Aires, A Great European City 45 Ramón Gutiérrez 4 The Time of the Capitals. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo: Words, Actors and Plans 75 Margaretb da Silva Pereira 5 Cities within the City: Urban and Architectural Transfers in Santiago de Chile, 1840-1940 109 Fernando Pérez Oyarzun and José Rosas Vera II EARLY VICEREGAL CAPITALS 6 The Urban Development of Mexico City, 1850-1930 139 Carol McMichael Reese 7 The Script of Urban Surgery: Lima, 1850-1940 170 Gabriel Ramón III THE CARIBBEAN RIM AND CENTRAL AMERICA 8 Havana, from Tacón to Forestier 193 Roberto Segre 9 Caracas: Territory, Architecture and Urban Space 214 Lorenzo González Casas 10 Urbanism, Architecture, and Cultural Transformations in San José, Costa Rica, 1850-1930 241 Florencia Quesada 11 Conclusions 271 Arturo Almandoz Index 275 es Chapter 4 so The Time of the Capitals: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo: Words, Actors and Plans Margaretb da Silva Pereira Visions of an Imperial Capital in Project: Rio de Janeiro (1822-1840) .With a mixture of curiosity and surprise, in Regarded by Baudelaire as the ‘expression /the 1820s, thousands of Parisians and of a new feeling of life’, the urban panoramas Londoners began to discover Rio de Janeiro that multiplied in several cities in Europe and /almost without leaving home. Brazilian America, delimit a time that reaches the end Independence was proclaimed in 1822, and of the nineteenth century, marked by the cir in Paris as early as 1824 the Prévost brothers, culation of city images that celebrated and the most renowned exhibitors of panoramas recognized the urban condition itself from in Europe in the early nineteenth century, dis new ideological, epistemological, economic played grand sights of Rio with great success. and political perspectives. Exchanging knowl J Through its representation on canvas, Emperor edge or trade values, these cities were to 1 Pedro I introduced the city as the new capital engage in a permanent movement of creation . of the Empire of Brazil, thus meeting the and recreation of their interdependent links. expectations that Brazilian America had The time of construction of these ‘nebulae’2 j awakened among European businessmen, of cities was, to use old terminology, a ‘bour ! intellectuals, artists and naturalists since the geois’ one. That is, it was a time in which ! country’s harbours had opened to free trade class values were consolidated; above all, ! in 1808. Similar panoramic sights of the city ‘living in a city’ was established worldwide on were shown somewhat later, in 1828, in a new scale and with a new perspective; and, London this time. In that year, in Leicester unlike what still happened in vast areas of Square, Robert Burford also exhibited his grand Brazil, the older forms of ruling social organi panoramic images of the city as depicted by zation were replaced. Simultaneously, nation William John Burchell.1 states redesigned and consolidated their positions relative to one another, sometimes the transfer of the Court and the opening of establishing their significance on the inter Brazilian harbours to free trade in that year, national stage through existing major cities, there began a century of social, political and such as Rio de Janeiro, sometimes through urban ‘reforms’ which would raise the city to developing new urban centres which, like Sao a higher level of both function and activity. Paulo, had until then been of minor impor The Court’s arrival not only turned Rio de tance. The early nineteenth-century exhibit Janeiro into the capital of the Portuguese of the panoramic images of the capital of the monarchy in the tropics (1808-1822) but new Empire of Brazil could be seen as one also signalled Brazilian society’s irreversible among the many signs of such alignment of transition to a new place in history. The cities that increasingly strengthened their bonds urban dynamics that were to develop there and shared certain of the cultural processes of after, although fluctuating, peaked with the the progressive world. proclamation of Independence, placing Rio In the case of Brazil, this movement res de Janeiro in the position of capital of the cued the strategic function of the harbour of Empire of Brazil, a position that survived until Rio de Janeiro whose mainstay at the begin the proclamation of the Republic in 1889. ning of the eighteenth century had been the Thus, Taunay’s and Burchell’s panoramas export of gold. With the continuous eco of Rio de Janeiro (figure 4.1) captured the nomic activity, promoted by wealth circula moment when the city’s new position tion, the city had already achieved, by 1763, crystallized as the result of its increasing par the function of political-administrative capital ticipation a new - capitalist, urban, merchant of the Viceroyalty of the State of Brazil.3 and industrial - order, and the city reigned Figure 4.1 A panoramic view of Rio de Janeiro, by Felix-Emile Taunay, c. 1822. Watercolour. Photo: Dominique Delaunay. (Source: Private Collection) In the last decade of the eighteenth over the Latin American continent as very century, the centrality already exerted by Rio, few cities did. together with the emancipation movements In the early nineteenth century, the capital, which threatened the Portuguese Crown’s now of a new Empire, was just one of many sovereignty in Latin America, placed the city cities - among other numerous less important in an even more privileged position. This was urban nebulae - that were building a closer further enhanced by plans to transfer the very exchange network (figure 4.2). Hardly exceed capital of the Kingdom of Portugal4 from ing 110,000 inhabitants,5 its social complexity Lisbon to Brazil. With Napoleon’s expan and economic performance were nevertheless sionism in Europe, the Portuguese Crown infinitely more significant than in the colonial was actually to settle in Ria-de-Janekcuin period.6 It was depicted in drawings as seem 1808; thus abiding to the city’s economically ingly among those ‘singular’ cities that, due strong role a politically relevant one. With to their past history, their current dynamism, Figure 4.2 A watercolour of Rio de Janeiro by Eduard Hildebrandt, 1844. Photo: Fausto Fleury. (Source: Biblioteca Nacional) or their future promise, began to celebrate or analysed, but also began to set up the to be celebrated in accordance with the ethos problem of the symbolic role the capital-city of the panoramas: Constantinople, Rome, itself should perform in a new political and Paris, London . That is, old and new economic order.7 capital cities which were the badges of history Because of the position Rio de Janeiro itself and of the advent of the industrial and occupied, during the century, in the inter urban era. national ‘nebulae’ of cities, discussions on its Canvasses depicted the Emperor on the shape and role were sometimes heated, and Morro do Castelo (Castelo Hill), which was a the city’s technical elites regularly highlighted belvedere for focusing both the city and, its potential and its dysfunctions. chiefly, the ‘untouched’ nature in the surround In the successive projects that were dis ings. Although the image of Rio de Janeiro cussed for the city as the capital of a newly would evoke a new Arcadia, the city had independent territory, two opposing rhetorics nevertheless been the target of numerous are to be seen regarding the image and the criticisms since the late eighteenth century. In function of a capital city. One, the more fact, the Court settlement and the Indepen modern and dynamic, associated the notion dence proclamation not only resulted in the of capital with ‘circulation’, communication, city being more frequently and deeply and exchange, thus linking it to the very ability of a capital to attract - human, (in 1824-1825, 1827), stand out at the time economic, scientific - ‘capital’. It prioritized of the proclamation of Independence. the efficiency of circulation networks and the The second episode is marked by engineer flow of - material and immaterial - values Henrique de Beaurepaire Rohan’s projects (in and assets that every city, but especially a 1843), and peaked with those by Henry Law capital city, should be able to use to advan and the debates on the city’s harbour and tage and for interaction.