Regional cities: international references in Brazilian regional planning in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACT

A new stage of urban planning emerged in Brazil in the 1950s, with the region as the object of planning. Planners began to recognize the international contribution to the institutionalization of planning and to the development of proposals for Brazilian cities, as well as the connection between planning and urban decentralization ideas. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to delineate the city model that was being proposed within regional scale plans as the result of international urban practices and ideas. Two examples of such plans are presented in this paper: the Regional Plan of Santos (1950) and the Basic Regional Plan for the Coastline of Parana State (1966). As a result of the international references incorporated into these plans, a mixture of urban principles can be identified in these territorial proposals. The regional city model is the predominant principle arising from these plans, derived from the association of two planning scales: urban and regional.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional city
• Brazilian regional planning
• planning diffusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Gislaine Elizete Beloto lectures on town and regional planning at State University of Maringá. She is an architect, PhD in Architecture and Urbanism (Regional Planning History), a Geography Master (Regional and Environmental Analysis), and expert in regional development.

ORCID

Gislaine Elizete Beloto http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1409-7996

Notes

1 Gorelik, “A Produção da Cidade Latino-Americana,” 119.

2 Almandoz, “Urban Planning and Historiography in Latin America,” 81–123; idem, “From Urban to Regional Planning in Latin America, 1920–50,” 87–95; idem, Planning Latin America’s Capital Cities, 1850–1950; Feldman, “1950 - a Década de Crença no Planejamento Regional no Brasil.”; and idem, “Transforming the Region, Transforming the City.”

3 Almandoz, “Modernización Urbanística en America Latina,” 59–80.

4 David Lilienthal, TVA: a Democracia em Marcha. TVA’s ideas were widespread in several countries, including India, China, Australia, México, Chile, Perú, Uruguay and Brazil.

5 de Almeida Chiquito, A Comissão Interestadual da Bacia Paraná-Uruguai; idem, “A Criação da Comissão Interestadual da Bacia Paraná-Uruguai,” 70.

6 Lopes, O Vale do São Francisco.

7 Chiquito, “Criação da Comissão Interestadual,” 72.

8 Feldman, “Transforming the Region”.

9 Ibid.

10 Beloto, “Da Região à Metrópole.”

11 SAGMACS - Society of Graphic and Mecanographic Analysis Applied to Social Complexes - was one of the Latin American offices originated from the international influence of the French group Économie et humanisme and was founded by the priest Louis-Joseph Lebret in Brazil, 1947.

12 Leme, ed., Urbanismo no Brasil: 1895–1965. See also de following works Pontual, Louis-Joseph Lebret na América Latina; and Pelletier, Économie et Humanisme.

13 Pavia, “El Miedo al Crecimiento Urbano,” 110.

14 Fishman, The American Planning Tradition, 14.

15 Geddes, Cities in Evolution, 34.

16 Sharp, Town Planning.

17 Stein, “City Patterns … Past and Future,” 53.

18 Calthorpe and Fulton, The Regional City, 07.

19 Hebbert, “Town Planning versus Urbanism,” 233–51.

20 Almandoz, “Modernización Urbanística,” 62.

21 Mello, Curso de Urbanismo, 01.

22 Violich wrote the book Cities of Latin America (1944) after a large study about the city and living in Latin America.

23 Sert proposed the City of Motors, Rio de Janeiro (1945), the City of Chimbote, Peru (1948) and the Center of Havana, Cuba (1953).

24 When Rotival was hired for the second time by the Venezuelan government, he asked to be called planner, and not urbanist, as that was considered the broadest professional.

25 Nowadays ECLA is named ECLAC - Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean.

26 Gorelik, “Produção da Cidade,” 118.

27 Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil, 524.

28 Gallion and Eisner, The Urban Pattern: City Planning and Design. It was quoted in Baltar, Diretrizes de um Plano Regional para o Recife, 93–4.

29 Nowadays Guanabara State is called Rio de Janeiro State.

30 Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil, 372–7; and Andreatta, Cidades Quadradas, Paraísos Circulares, 68–70.

31 Almandoz, “Modernización Urbanística,” 59–80; Feldman, “1950 - a Década de Crença”; Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil; and Rego, “Importing Planning ideas, Mirroring Progress,” , 625–34.

32 Oliveira, “Modelos Urbanísticos Modernos e Parques Urbanos.”

33 Maia, Plano Regional de Santos, 194-5.

34 Ibid., 38.

35 Meyer, “Metrópole e Urbanismo,” 82.

36 Maia, Plano Regional de Santos, 210.

37 Ibid., 221–2.

38 Ibid., 215.

39 Architect Luiz Forte Netto is an influent professional in town planning in Paraná. Originally from São Paulo, graduated in 1957 from Mackenzie College, he traced the opposite way of Vilanova Artigas (1925–1985) leaving São Paulo and going to Curitiba in 1961, where he helped to implement the course of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Paraná in 1962, the same year that he participated in the creation of the local Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAB) in Curitiba; he was invited by Jorge Wilheim (1928–2014) to follow the development of the Master Plan of Curitiba (1965); he was the president of Institute of Research and Urban Planning of Curitiba (IPPUC), 1968/1969; and since 2003 worked in the SEDU/Paranacidade, leaving the post as the Urban Development Secretary in 2010.

40 The influence of Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) had on the planning team of Paraná State explain in part the hiring of SAGMACS to elaborate the Plan for the Development of Paraná: first, because of the strong relationship that both had with the Theory of Economic Centers of Development of François Perroux, and, perhaps, the primordial issue was the fact that the Governor Ney Braga (1961–1965) belonged to Christian Democratic Party, which incorporated in Brazil the proposals formulated by the Economie et Humanisme movement.

41 Gandolfi, Plano Básico Regional do Litoral do Paraná, S60. Industrial fishing would be implanted in Paranaguá and a warehouse in Guaratuba. To reduce inequalities, cooperatives should be set up in the interior of the region, which would be destined to the storage of agricultural produce.

42 Ibid., 15.

43 FChoay, O Urbanismo.

44 A sector of Chandigarh measures 800 × 1200 m; the urban unity proposed in the Basic Plan for the Coastline of Paraná State measures approximately 700 × 1000 m.

45 Sica, Historia del Urbanismo, 63.

46 Corbusier, Os Três Estabelecimentos Humanos, 85–6.

47 Dudeque, Nenhum Dia sem uma Linha: uma História do Urbanismo em Curitiba; and Gnoato, “Curitiba, Cidade do Amanhã.”

48 Geddes, Cities in Evolution, 34.

49 Stein, “City Patterns,” 53.