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Copyright by Evan Mark Ross 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Evan Mark Ross Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: (Re)Constructing a Brazilian Model City: Discourses of Exceptionalism in Making and Imagining Curitiba, 1900-1945 Committee: Seth Garfield, Supervisor Virginia Burnett Clara Irazábal Ann Twinam João Vargas (Re)Constructing a Brazilian Model City: Discourses of Exceptionalism in Making and Imagining Curitiba, 1900-1945 by Evan Mark Ross, B.A. M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2013 Dedication For my family. I love you. Thank you. Acknowledgements Many inviduals have helped me to complete this project, and I owe many intellectual debts that I can only hope to repay. I thank Dr. Seth Garfield, my advisor. No words will do justice in expressing my gratitude for all your assistance. I thank the members of my dissertation committee –Dr. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Dr. Clara Irazábal, Dr. Ann Twinam, and Dr. João Vargas. I thank the Fulbright-Hays Commission for providing financial assistance to complete my research. I thank Robert George Watson, Guilherme Baran, Yrma Dumas Watson, Rainer Nitzche, and Karen Schneider. I thank all of the Brazilians who have helped me and encouraged me and befriended me. There are so many individuals who have helped me over the years. Know that I could not have completed this project without your kindness, encouragement, and professionalism. Thank you. v (Re)Constructing a Brazilian Model City: Discourses of Exceptionalism in Making and Imagining Curitiba, 1900-1945 Evan Mark Ross, PhD. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Seth Garfield My dissertation examines the putative success of Curitiba, the Brazilian capital of Paraná, and seeks to understand how it came to be touted as the model city of Brazil. The standard explication for Curitiba’s success credits the power of a single city agency, the Urban Planning and Research Institute of Curitiba (IPPUC), and the vision of its first president, Jaime Lerner. According to this narrative, in 1971 IPPUC formalized a broad urbanistic vision for the city’s growth and initiated projects aimed at improving traffic congestion, expanding green space, and increasing city and social services. I argue that the narrative of the institute’s contributions provide an incomplete genealogy of Curitiba’s success. It fails to examine the historical context of the city’s status and does not consider the significance of publicity campaigns in sustaining this image. Also, IPPUC’s story is not only tendentious but derivative. My historical research shows how IPPUC has rearticulated longstanding tropes that celebrate the region’s unique characteristics -such as Curitiba’s edenic cityscape and its European social composition- and has recycled deterministic arguments related to race, ethnicity, and geography. My dissertation demonstrates that exceptionalist discourses have circulated for more than a vi century. I trace these claims from the 1880s to the 1940s and investigate how and why they changed over time. I show that politicians first initiated efforts to promote the region at the turn of the twentieth century to attract European colonists. Over the next fifty years, politicians, elites, and intellectuals forwarded new claims that positioned Curitiba and Paraná as ideal locations for economic and social development. Planning specialists from around the world have closely studied Curitiba’s urban development, but in their analyses they have largely failed to consider the intellectual and social constructs that undergird this story of progress. My dissertation focuses on century-old celebratory claims about Curitiba and reveals the epistemological roots of the current explications of the city’s success. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xi Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Historiographical Contribution .......................................................................3 Dissertation Organization ...............................................................................8 Chapter One: Colonial Expansion, Economic Growth, and Population Changes .12 Introduction ...................................................................................................12 Physical Geography ......................................................................................13 Indigenous Settlements, Early European Exploration, Conquest .................16 Economic Development and Demographic Change: ....................................20 Gold 20 Tropeiros ..............................................................................................22 Provincial Independence, Political and Demographic Expansion ................35 Curitiba .........................................................................................................40 Conclusion ....................................................................................................48 Chapter Two: Population Expansion, Urbanization, and Intellectuals, 1890-192050 Introduction ...................................................................................................50 Immigration, Population Growth, and Economic Expansion, 1890-1920 ....53 Immigration and Population Expansion in Curitiba, 1890-1920 ..................56 Curitiba’s Physical Restructuring .................................................................60 Sanitation, Hygiene, and Class Segregation .................................................64 Cultural Clubs, Mutual Aid Societies, and Labor Organizations .................67 Intellectual Groups ........................................................................................71 Curitiba’s Fine Arts Coalescence ..................................................................72 Curitiba’s Literary Coalescence ....................................................................73 The Discourse of Exceptionalism- Key Celebratory Texts ..........................76 Romário Martins ...........................................................................................76 Sebastião Paraná- Chorographia do Paraná ..................................................84 viii José Rocha Pombo- O Paraná no Centenário ...............................................88 Francisco Negrão- Boletim do Archivo Municipal de Curitiba ....................94 Alcebiades Plaisant- Scenario Paranaense, ...................................................95 Descripção Geográphica, Política, e Histórica do Estado do Paraná ............95 Mariana Coelho- O Paraná Mental ..............................................................97 Nestor Victor- A Terra do Futuro (Impressões do Paraná) .........................101 Domingos Nascimento- A Hulha Branca no Paraná ...................................109 Conclusion ..................................................................................................112 Chapter Three: Brazilian Urbanization and Curitiba development, 1920-1940 ..115 Introduction .................................................................................................115 Global Spread of Urbanism Theories .........................................................119 Planning Debates in Brazil ..........................................................................123 Agache’s Urbanism Lectures ......................................................................126 Agache’s Planning Theory ..........................................................................130 1930 Agache Plan for Rio de Janeiro .........................................................134 Modernist Divisions ....................................................................................138 Institutions and Publications .......................................................................141 The First Brazilian Urbanism Congress ......................................................144 Debates on the Role of International Experts .............................................145 Urbanism Publicity .....................................................................................147 Popular Housing as a Component of Urbanism ..........................................149 The Urbanism Turn and New Celebratory Claims in Curitiba ...................155 New Celebratory Tropes: Hyperbole, Mythology, Facts, and Figures .......163 Conclusion ..................................................................................................176 Chapter Four: A New Master City Plan, a Rearticulated Celebratory Narrative .179 Introduction .................................................................................................179 The Agache Plan .........................................................................................181 Urbanism Publicity .....................................................................................186 The Curitiba City Bulletin ..........................................................................190 Physical and Cultural Signs of Progress .....................................................192 ix Historical Narratives Renewed and Revised ...............................................197 Auguste