Tourism, changing architectural styles, and the production of place in Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

This article examines changing architecture in Itacaré, Brazil, as it transitions from a fishing village to an international tourist destination. Tourism, as an assemblage of practices and perspectives, recreates places in specific ways that structure social and environmental relationships. Through an examination of historical architectural styles, tourist architecture, and popular architecture in Itacaré, this article analyses the ways a tourist economy has physically and socially rebuilt the city. Socially, the changing architecture marks and creates differences between class, racial, and regional identities while also providing an idiom through which public conversations about these changing economic systems and demographics are articulated. At the same time, the expansion of the city has led to racial-, regional-, and class-based segregation. Environmentally, tourist architecture creates new relationships to nature through re-imagining Itacaré’s position in relation to other rural and urban places and a new emphasis on the aesthetic value of nature.

Keywords:

• Brazil
• tourism
• architecture
• nature
• regionalism
• place

Notes

1. Literally translated as The big house and the slave's quarter, this book is usually translated into English as The masters and slaves, which unfortunately ignores the role of architecture in Freyre's analysis.

2. All names of participants have been changed.

3. Brazilian urban and rural space is conceived in terms of the capital and interior, based on the political, economic, and social centrality of state capitals.

4. For example, poor, black people from nearby areas were more likely to call themselves local, even if they were not born in Itacaré or had not been there that long. People from the Southeast talked about how they felt like foreigners, even if they were still in Brazil, and some even called themselves gringos. However, when Southeasterners were talking to tourists or obvious foreigners, they might say they were from Itacaré. Natives born in Itacaré do not recognize anyone as local who was not born in Itacaré, no matter how long they have been there.

5. Two common terms for locals are sons of fishermen and sons of the earth, both of which connect them to the environment and place through productive activities of farming and fishing.

6. An urban planning project in Rio de Janeiro inspired by Haussman's work in Paris was called Civila-se, or to civilize yourself, indicating the extent to which urban design was seen as having a Europeanizing and civilizing influence on society (Banck, 1993).