TEN YEARS AFTER¹ | June 2002

Anna Beatriz Galvão & Hugo Segawa

One can ask how an organization like DOCOMOMO – with such European background – could have flourished in Brazil. Certainly it can be explained only with the improvement of the discussion that widened the organization’s scope, and the full development of an international dialogue along the six international conferences already realized, including the one in Brasilia in the year 2000 – the first organized outside the Old World. The Brazilian conference celebrated and coincided with the 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the most challenging city scheme of the Modern Movement. And it was the opportunity to the foreigners visit the very first Modern Movement ensemble listed at the UNESCO World Heritage Monument, in 1987. But this is not a recent or a shallow concern on MoMo documentation and preservation. The earliest MoMo building in the Brazilian Heritage was appointed in 1948: the Ministry of Education and Health Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, by Lucio Costa and Team, with Le Corbusier as consultant. It was listed only three years after its completion. At the same year, the Pampulha ensemble in Belo Horizonte, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1939-1942, was included in the Brazilian Heritage – modern achievements considered as important as the impressive 18th century baroque buildings of the listing. So, in Brazil, MoMo buildings and sites deserved attention more than a half century ago. We have heard from foreigners that Brazil is a modern country. But we don’t believe that this is enough to explain this peculiar approach that Brazilians have to the modernity.

The first contacts with the DOCOMOMO International showed how rich it could be the co-existence of so many different interpretations about the so called “Modern Movement”. It was quite amazing to observe the plurality of thoughts and to perceive the diversity of goals from those who have searched DOCOMOMO. There was no doubt that it was the opportunity to check some “unquestionable trues” through an international and open debate – a challenge that could be succeeded or not. Nevertheless, it was 1992 and no Brazilian institutions nor senior researchers have responded the Hubert-Jan Henket appellation to organise a working party here. Anna Beatriz has gone to DOCOMOMO Dessau conference just to present a paper on the origins of the Brazilian modern architecture. On the last day of the event, she was “intimated” to establish a Brazilian group. Now she can admit that she received that invitation as an obligation, because it was unconceivable to see Brazil outside of that debate. By the other hand, there was a serious question: how could be possible establish a true working-party in such continental-broad country? Just one word has moved the strategy: collectivity. A Brazilian network was started in Salvador with the support of the Graduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism of the Federal University of Bahia. Their first task was to identify, through institutional contacts, those who were working with the Modern Movement thematic (criticism, history, preservation and so on). A few responses have come back, but they were truly important to this very beginning and they resulted in the first (and yet in progress) Brazilian DOCOMOMO Register. In 1995 it was decided to organise a national seminar, the First Brazilian DOCOMOMO Seminar. It was really a success, with the participation of prominent researchers from the whole country, and a moment to put together the state-of-the-art in the matter.

In an international panorama, this “collective” strategy has promoted a significant participation of Brazilian DOCOMOMO members in the International Specialist Committees. The Urbanism Committee was proposed and first co-ordinated by Marco Aurélio Gomes, Ana Fernandes and Anna Beatriz –, as well as in the International DOCOMOMO Conferences with so many papers to be evaluated by the Scientific Committees. The Sixth DOCOMOMO International Conference, coordinated by Frederico Holanda in Brasília, was another hard task. It allowed many DOCOMOMO members (and MoMo agnostics) to experience both the city of Brasilia and a country with so many outstanding modern architecture.

DOCOMOMO has a special profile that matches actual interests in Brazil. Four national conferences were organized (1995 and 1997 in Salvador, 1999 in São Paulo, 2001 in Viçosa), the last two with about 250 people attendance. The foreign invited speakers were Beatriz Colomina (Princeton University), Eduardo Subirats (Princeton University), Francisco Liernur (Argentina), Hubert-Jan Henket (DOCOMOMO International), Wessel de Jonge (DOCOMOMO International), Mary McLeod (Columbia University), Maristella Casciato (DOCOMOMO International), Helio Piñon (Politecnica de Catalunya), Ola Wedebrunn (DOCOMOMO Denmark), Lilia Maure Rubio (Politecnica de Madrid). The next biennial national conference will happen in 2003 in the city of São Carlos (São Paulo). One regional seminar, in the state of São Paulo, was organized in 1998 by an active group in São José dos Campos (a city in Paraiba Valley in the state of São Paulo) and it is scheduled a second one in the city of Taubaté this year. The São Paulo DOCOMOMO group also organized open meetings pointing out some endangered buildings to the public opinion. Three books published stamped DOCOMOMO logo: Rediscussing Modernism by Luis Antonio Fernandes Cardoso and Olivia Fernandes de Oliveira (UFBA, 1987, 302 p., Portuguese), Modernist Architecture in Porto Alegre by Günter Weimer (Prefecture of Porto Alegre, 1998, 174 p., Portuguese) and Inventory of Modern Architecture in Paraiba Valley by the São José dos Campos DOCOMOMO group (UBC/UNITAU/UNIVAP, 1997, 66. p., Portuguese/).

The national DOCOMOMO seminars mirror the vitality of MoMo subjects. The audience of hundreds of architects, professors, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students reveals the increasing interest in Brazil on the study and the recognition of the yet unknown modernity in the country. Most papers deal with Architectural History, Register and Urbanism & Landscape matters. The large participation stands out the development of academic research in Master and Doctorate courses over the country, mainly in Theory & History area, and all of them demanding a forum for discussion of this scientific output. The DOCOMOMO seminars are now one of the privileged national events with this scientific profile.

Ten years after, it is possible to say that DOCOMOMO Brazil has reached the majority, thanks to the support and help from Paul Meurs, Ana Fernandes, Marco Aurélio Gomes, Anete Araujo, Angela Pedrão, Naia Alban, Olivia de Oliveira, José Pessoa, Frederico Holanda, Mirthes Baffi, Walter Pires, Ademir Pereira dos Santos, Alexandre Penedo, Lucio Gomes Machado, Martha Camisassa, Alejandra Muñoz, among many other special colleagues.

June 2002

Anna Beatriz Galvão was DOCOMOMO Brazilian working-party founder and former coordinator (1992-1999), co-organizer of the VI International DOCOMOMO Conference – Brasília 2000; Hugo Segawa is the DOCOMOMO Brazilian working-party coordinator (2002-2003).

Article published in DOCOMOMO JOURNAL, Delft, n. 27, p. 34-36, 2002.