Urban sites in redemocratization: new demands and ways to expand preservation practices

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the responses to the demands of protection of cities made by new social agents to the federal institution of preservation, from 1979 to 1989, during the process of redemocratization in Brazil. Urban problems, intensified in the 1970s, involving the destruction of urban areas, as well as transformations in the listed sites, caused changes in the valuation of these cultural goods, since the demands did not necessarily correspond to the standards previously used to protect cities by the federal preservation institution. Until then modernist intellectual agents structured preservation actions and a hegemonic vision of what would represent a national identity: Brazilian colonial architecture and exceptional buildings. In response to new requests, other heritage values were adopted, admitting the heterogeneity of architectural styles on the sites, the urban historicity, and assuming the concept of city’s as documents in overcoming the stylistic criteria of valuing towns. The institution approached the inhabitants of the listed sites and promoted research for the production knowledge to establish parameters and analysis standards for the interventions requested by them. The 1988 Federal Constitution stands out, for being the first to define a guiding concept for preservation practices and for having social groups as protagonists in the valorization of cultural goods.

KEYWORDS:
Urban heritage; Redemocratization; Social demands; City’s as documents; Urban historicity