De prometida a seccionada! A construção histórica da paisagem da Praça Cayru : ideários de modernização em Salvador no século XX(1910-1970).

Abstract

The present study analyzes the historical construction of the landscape of Praça Cayru, in the city of Salvador, between the 1910s and the 1970s, by examining it through the urban modernization perspectives of the first half of the 20th century. First, under the ideals of fluidity, aesthetics, and salubrity, within the context of central districts renovation processes; and second, from a modernizing perspective following the 1935 Salvador’s Urbanism Week and the ideals of functionality, planning, and progress, within the context of the city’s expansion and transformation. The research is justified from the academic, historical, urban, and landscape perspectives, as it aims to fill a gap regarding Praça Cayru’s landscape, which has not been the focus of specific and in-depth studies, despite the extensive body of research on the Comércio district and its region. This historical-documentary study was conducted through an analysis from a macro scale, considering the Comércio district, and the buildings and spaces located around or adjacent to Praça Cayru, such as the Modelo Market, the Federal Customs House, the Lacerda Elevator, the Rampa dos Saveiros, and the Corpo Santo Church, as well as the square’s elements such as its layout, paving, furnishings, monument, and vegetation on a micro scale. Thus, the applied methodology comprised three main stages: literature review, collection and analysis of primary sources, and in situ observation of the study object. The first chapter analyzes the historical and morphological evolution of Salvador’s old commercial district, highlighting the transformations of its landscape over time, with an emphasis on successive landfills that contributed for configurating it. The second chapter discusses the formation of Praça Cayru’s surrounding landscape, examining the relationships between this space and the main neighboring architectural structures. The third chapter examines Praça Cayru’s landscape within the context of urban renovation processes that aimed at modernizing the city of Salvador in the early decades of the 20th century, emphasizing the events and disputes related to the square’s origins and its first gardening intervention. Lastly, the fourth chapter analyzes Praça Cayru’s landscape in the context of the city’s expansion and transformation from the 1930s onwards, highlighting its second gardening intervention and the construction of Avenida Contorno, which split it into two parts. To conclude, we understand the processes of formation and transformations of the studied landscape, highlighting how Praça Cayru Square transitioned from a materialized modernizing promise to the configuration of a fragmented open space due to other stage of the city’s modernization.