Praça Tiradentes: o espaço público através da imaginária urbana (Séculos XIX, XX E XXI)

Abstract

Tiradentes Square, located in downtown Rio de Janeiro, stands out as a public space of intense social life and culture since the Royal Family came to Brazil in the 19th Century. This characteristic was particularly enhanced at the beginning of the 20th Century, with the so-called "Belle Epoque" in Brazil. The square, then, became known as one of the main bohemian places in Rio. During the 20th Century, the landscape of the city went through profound changes in its layout and dynamics due to numerous interventions. The dissertation consists of the urban imaginary analysis of Tiradentes Square through six sets of sculpture that are located, or have been, in its space throughout the 19th, 20th and 21th Centuries. The methodology seeks, based on the analysis of the elements listed as urban imaginary, to understand in a general way the relation between itself and the public space as well as the social agents in each lapse analyzed. It is aimed to demonstrate that these urban elements are synthesizers of the images of the place and are linked to the urban interventions done during the 19th, 20th and 21th Centuries. Therefore, the implemented urban interventions reverberate the different urbanistic theories and the remodeling ideals of the public space in different temporalities, which, somehow, are revealed in the square in the contemporaneity. Thus, the analytical triad formed by urban imaginary, public space and social agents is established as a method for the study of memory and urban life in the city.