In the 21st century, tourism has become extensively popularised and accessible to the ever widening middle class. Different spaces are carefully marketed for tourists instigating desires to travel and explore new cultures. The guidebook, which can be seen as a tool to perpetuate the mechanisms of power structures and the views of a dominant class has been revisited, offering sliding perspectives on spatial phenomenons. 

This particular guidebook for space consumers and space producers focuses on a specific geography, in the urban setting of Sao Paulo: the Minhocão. The big worm as it translates from Portuguese, is a 3.5km long elevated highway also known as the elevated highway costa e silva built during the years of the Brazilian dictatorship. The study of this contested space will attempt to inform the reader of how space far from being neutral is socially produced and reproduced – invested with various forms of agency operating on different levels.

The road: concrete, politics and modernity

On the 24th of January 1971, the celebration of the 417th birthday of the youthful city of Sao Paulo is marked by the christening of the elevated motorway named after the president costa e silva. The ceremony hosts government officials including the current governor Abréu Sodréa and the controversial mayor of the city: Paulo Maluf. The broadcasted event is an exemplary demonstration of power and unleashing of dubitable ideals under the current dictatorial regime. As the cortege of politicians passes on the fresh macadam, one wonders if all this concrete was poured for this single event – all for the bitter taste of fading modernity. [1]

The construction of the minhocao is part of a legacy of large scale infrastructure projects initiated in the 1930’s which coincides with the ascent of Modernity which was for Brazil the promise of a new aesthetic and “the foundation for the ideology of a new nation”. [2] In his writings on concrete and culture, Adrian Forty describes concrete as emblematic of the unifying prism of modernity; creating the conditions for countries [and cities] to compare and compete [their built environment] from one another. [3]

From the 1960’s until the 1980’s the production of concrete in Brazil expanded drastically from 6 million tons in 1959 to 19.1 million tons in 1966. [4] ( today 60 million tons of concrete are produced). The minhocao built solely of concrete has the monolithic appearance of a whole which is the distinct expression of modernity, also enhanced with the use of cantilever structural support accentuating the horizontal plan. This motorway is the expression of modernity and the ideals of the modern city: ordered and sanitised to accommodate its new fluxes.

In his seminal book, All that is solid melts into air, Marshall Berman speaks of these new fluxes, drawing from Beaudelaire’s writings in Paris spleen and more precisely the scenes of the boulevard. Where the boulevard is depicted as « moving chaos” and “death galloping at every side…» [5]

From this perspective, comes a realisation of modernism investing the street and the birth of traffic as an impenetrable flow to the single human body; what Le Corbusier sought as necessary to contain and order for the sake of a better city.

Following the opening of the minhocao, the consequences were rather disastrous. the pollution, noise, and obstructed daylight degraded the quality of life of the many residents living side to the big worm. Shorlty after, the minhocao was shut to traffic at night in order to allow residents to sleep without the constant noise of traffic. 

From a political perspective, this project was authoritarian, led from a top down approach without any public consultation. Such scale and typology echoes with New York’s mayor Robert Moses grand aspirations for highways in New York. When these authoritarian visions in Northern America were counteracted by community led organisations (Jane jacobs critiques)- The Brazilian political climate did not favour such opposition despite the heavy scepticism expressed by people and the local press back then.

Whilst road infrastructure significantly shaped the modern landscape of most countries, this would lead to an urbanism privileging spaces designed for a single form of transportation: the car. The car which can be seen as a symbol of freedom but especially a symbol of social status, especially in a city like Sao Paulo. The minhocao is exemplary of what Henry lefebvre describes as conceived space, the space of technocrats, urbanists, politicians; a space embedded in Paulo Maluf political strategy for him to leave his mark on the city.

1. Sao Paulo historical archives, Via Elevada Presidente Costa e Silva, 24 de janeiro de 1971, http://www.arquiamigos.org.br/info/info37/i-noticias htm, consulted on january, 2018

2. Luis Recaman, high speed urbanisation, Brazil’s modern architecture, Phaidon, (2004)

3,4. Adrian Forty, Concrete and culture, a material history, reaktion book, (2012)

5. Marshall Berman, modernism in the street, All that is solid melts into air, verso (2010)

Gentrification standby

From 1976, the minhocao becomes temporarily closed to traffic in the evenings, Saturdays and holidays, which has now extended to Sundays. The previous and current mayor’s plan (Fernando Hadad and João Doria) projects to shut it permanently to traffic and transform it into a park: parc minhocao. 

As the motorway shuts to traffic, new bodies and flows invest the street: pedestrians walking, urban hikers, skaters, cyclists… The re-appropriation of the space is a powerful gesture in itself and reveals spatial contingency, this change in occupancy has over the recent years created a space of opportunity for local economies to emmerge – However, its potential for attractiveness has yet to be exploited by the market. Whilst The fate of the space is in standby caught in governmental bureaucracy and conflicts of interests between residents and users. We shall now pay attention to the phenomenon of gentrification.

Gentrification is a term coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964. The term designates a particular phenomenon of demographic change within cities, how places morph into different socio-economical and spatial dynamics, with the particular characteristic of displacement of a lower class population to make way for a middle and upper-middle class population. 

Many factors come into play for this phenomenon to occur: governmental policies, changes in land value and based on speculation as well as the commodification of culture creating the social changes in taste and fashion for particular spatial arrangements. [6]

These processes of gentrification have been the focus of journalist Sabrina Duran who has investigated the architecture of gentrification in Sao Paulo since 2013.[7] Her reflections enable us to understand how gentrification occurs in the context of the minhocao. The neighbourhoods which the minhocao crosses (Villa Buarque, Campos Eliseos, Santa Cecilia and Barra Funda) have been the site of ‘sustained divestment’ since the 1960’s. Which was when the elite of Sao Paulo left the centre of the city to migrate to the southwest districts of the city which had been targeted by real estate markets. 

What is referred to as sustained divestment is the material degradation and monetary devaluation of a space. [8] (The window of time for this divestment seems to be ending as now the speech for revitalise the minhocao is legitimised and there is a growing appeal for the parc minhcoao to requalify the area).

The construction of the minhocao in the 1970 was one of the final coup de grace for this divestment to occur; accentuating the degradation of the area with noise, pollution and obstructed daylight.

Furthermore, gentrification is enacted by the commodification of culture, and the instrumentaliation of art. In the context of the minhocao and its reapproprition by the people, one can witness how cultural capital is intrumentalized by private banks such as Itau (part of the Itaú Unibanco group, one of the world’s largest financial conglomerates) which finances certain art performances trough their cultural umbrella: Itau cultural. [9] 

Brands such as Nike and Ben&Jerries have also deployed spatial marketing strategies or ‘corporate situationism’ [10] whereby corporations exploit the potential that lies in a place related experience. One is to stay alert in this instance to those economic forces and for whom the spaces they design are to be consumed.

6. Glass, R., ‘London: Aspects of Change’, in Glass, R., London: Aspects of Change’, (1964)

7. Sabrina Duran, How not to gentrify? An attempt to reflect on processes and structures, AG journalism, published online on the 23/06/2015, consulted in January 2018

8. Neil Smith (1979) Toward a Theory of Gentrification A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not People, Journal of the American Planning Association, 45:4, p 538-548

9. https://www.lesechos.fr/17/08/2016/LesEchos/22256-099-ECH_itau-mene-sa-revolution-culturelle-au-bresil.htm

10. F. Von Borries, who’s afraid of Niketown? , episode publishers, (2004) 

Hopes for inclusive urbanism 

As we come to understand that space is entangled in complex dynamics of forces: economic investment and divestment leading to fluctuating capital, but also changes of character, political ideologies, urban competitiveness between cities… 

We shall bring back the focus of our attention to the present, and formulate the potential of freedom that emanates from the minhocao. If one think of this space as the inverse of what it has been perceived; negative, authoritarian and exclusive. How could one delineate this alternative as a place for inclusion? Bearing in mind the mechanisms of exploitation of space under a neo-liberal regime. Their are strong arguments which favour the demolition of this authoritarian landmark, symbol of the dictatorship and of the hegemony of the car as part of the urbanisation process of the city. The minhocao is also seen as the moment of destruction of the cultural and intellectual territory of Sao Paulo at that time echoing with the loss of freedom of expression under the political regime. [11]

Would the demolition of the minhocao and this symbol translate into a creative act of creating a city free from any forms of dominant ideology? Or could the ruins of an obscure landmark be reappropriated and subverted as to frame narratives of inclusion in a highly unequal society?

These are likely issues to address in the coming years as to what the new occupiers of the minhocao whish for.

As to what inclusive urbanism could be, the practice of carnival could offer a set of strategies in enacting this principle. The carnival is an emblematic aspect of Brazilian culture.

It is a moment of effervescence and celebration where codes are subverted and authority is mocked. In her article on “carnavalizar as ruas de Sao Paulo” Raquel Rolnik speaks of the potential of carnavalising the streets and the appropriation of the public realm as a form of cultural practice that makes especially visible the relationship between minority groups, such as the black community, with the city. [12]

Although the spontaneity of these practices is subjected to institutionalisation and mechanisms of power, the inherent performative qualities of the carnaval is to unmask the normative and controlled behaviours within the city.

 11. R. Rolnik, o minhocao , in territorios em conflicto Sao Paulo. espaco, historia e politica, tres estrelas publisher, (2017) 

12. R. Rolnik, carnavalizar as ruas do Sao Paulo, …in territorios em conflicto Sao Paulo. espaco, historia e politica, tres estrelas publisher, (2017)

Bibliography:

The road: concrete, politics and modernity

Adrian Forty, Concrete and culture, a material history, reaktion book, (2012) | Marshall Berman, modernism in the street, All that is solid melts into air, verso (2010) | A.Forty, L. Recaman, high speed urbanisation, Brazil’s modern architecture, Phaidon, (2004) | J. Mcguirk, Edge city, driving the periphery of Sao Paulo, strelka press, (2012) | Giovanna Borasi & Mirko Zardini, Pedestrian populated highway, Actions: what you can do with the city, CCA & Novak, amsterdam, (2009)

Gentrification Standby

Sabrina Duran, How not to gentrify? An attempt to reflect on processes and structures, AG journalism, published online on the 23/06/2015 | Neil Smith (1979) Toward a Theory of Gentrification A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not People, Journal of the American Planning Association, 45:4, p 538-548 | Glass, R., ‘London: Aspects of Change’, in Glass, R., London: Aspects of Change’, (1964) | Mariana Schiller and Paula Freire Santoro, Why Minhocao should not be our high line park, Observa Sao Paulo, published online on the 19/09/17, consulted on January 2018 | F. Von Borries, who’s afraid of Niketown? , episode publishers, 2004| Luis Mendes, « Marginal Gentrification as Emancipatory Practice: An Alternative to the Hegemonic Discourse of the Creative City? », RCCS Annual Review, (2013)

Hopes for an inclusive urbanism

R. Rolnik, Territorios em conflicto Sao Paulo. espaco, historia e politica, tres estrelas publisher, (2017)

other:

R.Barthes, mythologies, the blue guide, (1957)