The Porto Maravilha Project and the 450 years of the city of Rio: on highlights and silences ^{2 3 4 5}

Abstract

This paper discusses certain political uses that the Administration of Eduardo Paes has undertaken concerning the Rio de Janeiro past during his two consecutive terms in charge of the city hall (2009-2016). To this end, anchored in the problematization of different places of memory and their relationship with what is made and taught by historians in their historiographic operations, it focuses on the Porto Maravilha Project that emerged within the celebrations of the city's 450th anniversary, celebrated in 2015. This event contributed both to erasing dimensions and public works related to the military dictatorship and the emergence of other (hi)stories for the city and its people.

Keywords
History of Education; Rio de Janeiro; Urban Reforms and Porto Maravilha

Resumo

O artigo se interessa pela discussão de determinados usos políticos que a Administração de Eduardo Paes empreendeu em relação ao passado carioca durante o período de dois mandatos consecutivos em que esteve à frente da prefeitura da cidade do Rio de Janeiro (2009-2016). Para tanto, ancorado na problematização dos diferentes lugares de memória e suas relações com aquilo que é fabricado e ensinado pelos historiadores em suas operações historiográficas, concentra as atenções no Projeto Porto Maravilha, que despontou dentro dos festejos dos 450 anos da cidade, comemorados em 2015. Tal efeméride concorreu tanto para a mobilização de esforços de apagamento de dimensões e obras públicas relacionadas ao período da ditadura militar quanto para a emergência de outras histórias para a cidade e sua gente.

Palavras-chave
História da Educação; Rio de Janeiro; Reformas Urbanas e Porto Maravilha

Introduction

Since early 2020, the impacts of Covid-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, have been notorious and alarming worldwide. Due to its fast contagious rate and the substantial increase in the number of deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic in March of that year. Unfortunately, in Brazil, contradictory, oppressing, and mistaken actions, mainly from governmental (mis)guidelines, led to over 595 thousand deaths until September 2021. However, more than numbers, we should always stress that we are dealing with dreams, projects, homes, wishes, and families, summing up (hi)stories that were (and still are) shattered by this disease.

This distressing panorama experienced in the country has also helped to intensify those strategies that, under the logic of government actions, aim to reinforce milestones, celebrate characters, and, ultimately, politically use historical events. In other words, more and more consistently, we have seen interested efforts to create traditions (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1984) about the national past. In this sense, certain discursivities (Foucault, 2008) have been called upon by revisionists who have invested in distortions of historical events aiming to (re)signify them and/or mitigate them. Similarly, denialists have deliberately placed under suspicion events such as the dictatorship, torture, holocaust, Nazism, fascism, slavery, global warming, environmental destruction, the force of the Covid-19 pandemic, and countless other examples. Such distortions and reinterpretations of the past are, mainly, related to the disputes and interactions established between the experienced and the learnt, the experienced and the transmitted” (Pollak, 1989, p. 9).

From this perspective, the problematization of the political uses that wished (and, in a way, continue to wish) to foist different discourses to the historical events should integrate the agenda of those interested in investigating these (hi)stories. Something related to the narratives analyzed, and those that can be (or, better yet, need to be) scrutinized. After all, the acts of celebrating and silencing carry in them the disputes and the investments mobilized from, and due to, the social demands of each historical period.

Shedding light on the disputes and investments regarding the meaning production of the past helps us to reinforce the ussie that “there is no spontaneous memory, we need to create archives, we need to keep birthdays, organize celebrations, to give funeral eulogies, register minutes because these operations are not natural” (Nora, 1993, p. 13). In this sense, we should insist that the interpretations, built document collections, chosen parts, selections, celebrations, silences, etc., will create the conditions for the production of events and the construction of Histories (De Certeau, 1982; Foucault, 1988, 2008).

Questioning the production of knowledge in history from and depending on these reflections means, above all, emphasizing the theoretical-methodological perspectives that wish to highlight the contingencies of the present in the production of narratives about the past. About this, we should follow the analysis of Paul Veyne (2014):

History is a narrative of an event: all the rest results from this. As it is, in fact, a narrative, it does not relieve these events, and neither does a novel; the experience, as it leaves the historian's hands, is not of its actors; it is a narration, which allows us to avoid false problems. As a novel, history selects, simplifies, organizes, and makes a century fit a page.

(p. 18)

The reflection around these specificities related to the (hi)stories, memories, and narrative constructions mobilized to manufacture the past (De Certeau, 1982) helps us to indicate some political uses that were (and many others that still are) undertaken by different governmental actions in different historical moments. In this way, within the limits established, our attention was focused on some initiatives that intended to celebrate the 450 years of the city of Rio de Janeiro (in 2015) – mainly the so-called Porto Maravilha Project [Mar.

To do so, we divided the text into four parts. First, we approach the so-called "Urban Renovations" (1960-1975) and some of its political and social implications during the military dictatorship. In the second part, we focus on the ‘oblivion effort’ sought by the destruction of Elevado da Perimetral, an essential work for the 450^th anniversary of the city. In the third, our attention is on the Porto Maravilha Project, relating it to other initiatives that emerged at the time. In the fourth part, as a final remark, we explore the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) and the Programa de Valorização da Memória e da Cultura Popular Carioca (Pró-Carioca) based on their attempts to highlight some (hi)stories for the city and its people.

Urban renovations in the former capital of Brazil

To analyze the dimensions of some aspects of Porto Maravilha Project, an investment undertaken by mayor Eduardo Paes (2009-2016), we need to consider that its interferences in the urban landscape of the city of Rio de Janeiro took place in memory places in dispute with a difficult period of our history: the military dictatorship (1964-1985). About this, as Jacques Le Goff (1996, p. 426) reminds us, the efforts to convert them (and continue to convert) into “the lords of memory and oblivion is one of the great concerns of classes, groups, and individuals that dominated and dominate the historical societies. The omissions and the silences of history reveal these mechanisms”. Also touched by these issues, we ask: what was intended to be forgotten in the implementation of the Porto Maravilha Project?

To approach this issue, we must first think about what was destroyed. About this, we highlight that the renovation logic of Eduardo Paes’s government guided its attention to many places of memory built during the dictatorial period. Thus, considering that (hi)stories and memories of dictatorship are still subjects in constant dispute in our society, any and every effort is engendered to produce omissions, which can compete for the emergence of dangerous social representations. Among these, the most recurrent ones are those that emphasize the unrealistic idea that the dictatorship period was better than the democratic one⁶.

In the case of Rio de Janeiro, this idea – which, unfortunately, still has its revisionist and denialist supporters –is strongly supported in certain discursivities emphasized about the Urban Renovations that emerged from 1960 to 1975. In this period, Brazil's capital was transferred to Brasília, on April 1960, thus turning the former Federal District into a state of the Federation with the name Guanabara, consequently managed by governors.

The status of city-State continued until March 1975, when the states of Rio de Janeiro and Guanabara merged, while the city of Rio, as the new state's capital, earned the status of a city, being run by mayors. Between 1960 and 1975, five governors ruled Guanabara: José Sette Câmara Filho, in 1960 (until the election of its first mayor), Carlos Lacerda (1960-1965), Rafael de Almeida Magalhães (1965), Francisco Negrão de Lima (1965-1970), and Antônio Chagas Freitas (1970-1975)⁷.

After the direct elections, the first governor of Guanabara was the journalist Carlos Frederico Werneck de Lacerda affiliated to the party União Democrática Nacional (UDN) and took office in December 1960. With a conservative profile, he was a military ally who articulated the coup of 1964 and removed João Goulart from Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) out of the presidency. Known as an anti-communist and political enemy of Getúlio Vargas, those factors led him to create antagonisms and admirers. The controversial Lacerda was one of the managers who received the epithet of a maker in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Motta, 2000a, 2005).

For instance, during his management, the city went through incisive urban transformations: the widening of streets, the inauguration of viaducts, the building of a second water main for the river Guandu, and the opening of the tunnels Santa Bárbara and Rebouças, the latter called “the work of the century”. Lacerda was also responsible for constructing Parque do Flamengo, schools, and avenues, including the Américas Avenue in Barra da Tijuca. Finally, he funded the Doxiadis plan that foresaw the construction of the Amarela and Vermelha routes (Motta, 2000a, 2005; Rezende, 2014).

The Lacerda government was also marked by the policy of removing communities in Rio de Janeiro, which was the target of criticism by part of the population and specialists. Approximately 30 favelas (slums) were eradicated, and hundreds of families compulsorily relocated to the first housing projects built in the city: Vila Kennedy, Vila Aliança, and Vila Esperança⁸. The removals were carried out regardless of the inhabitants’ acceptance, as the housing projects did not have adequate infrastructure⁹. New housing projects were created in the next government, and more families were removed. However, the favelas from Rio continued to grow (Abreu, 2006).

Even after the 1964 coup, the military government kept new direct elections for the Guanabara government in October 1965. The candidate Negrão de Lima¹⁰, oposition to Lacerda, won. A former Foreign Affairs minister of president Juscelino Kubitschek and Justice minister in Getúlio Vargas's democratic presidency, Negrão was elected by the alliance created by the parties Partido Social Democrático (PSD) and Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB), the same as João Goulart, the deposed president (Araújo, 1996; Bandeira, 1979).

Francisco Negrão de Lima took power on December 5, 1965, promising peace and work. His mandate, which lasted until 1970, also left some important urban landmarks in the city, such as the construction of the tunnel Dois Irmãos, the widening of Copacabana beach, the rehabilitation of Botafogo beach and Rodrigo de Freitas lake, as well as the opening of several schools. He also promoted the release of the Lúcio Costa Plan, starting Rio’s expansion towards Barra da Tijuca (Abreu, 2006; Cardoso, 2010). He could finish his mandate despite governing in one of the most challenging periods of political rights restrictions in Brazilian history and having faced strong opposition (Motta, 2000a).

Antônio de Pádua Chagas Freitas¹¹ came into power on March 15, 1970, promising to solve the health and education problems in the city-State. His particular way of using public administration for electoral purposes led to the term “chaguism” in Rio’s politics (Motta, 2000b; Trindade, 2000). Though affiliated to the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB), the party that opposed the Aliança Renovadora Nacional (Arena), the official party of the military regime, Chagas was accused by his adversaries of being an “auxiliary line” to the regional dictatorship politics. Many of these adversaries, called the "authentic MDB", gathered in the group connected to the former governor Amaral Peixoto, opposed chaguism¹², considering his policies as clientelism, famous for offering the "bicas d’água”¹³ [water fountain] to the poorest people (Motta, 2000b; Trindade, 2000).

Among Chagas Freitas's primary endeavours are the re-urbanization of Lapa, the recovery and widening of the Guandy complex, the underwater sewage of Ipanema, the construction of the viaducts of Mangueira, and the Noel Rosa tunnel. He also expanded the gas distribution and the work of Companhia Siderúrgica da Guanabara (Cosigua). Besides this, he urbanized Fundão Island, allowing the inauguration of the Cidade Universitária [University City] of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Abreu, 2006; Brum, 2012).

Chagas Freitas’s management was the target of polemics, amongst which the increase of the maximum height of buildings and criticisms due to the non-execution of several projects. His mandate ended precisely four years after his inauguration, on March 15, 1975, with the merger of Guanabara with Rio de Janeiro into a single state, which, according to some specialists, was a political maneuver from the dictatorship to neutralize MDB’s growth in Guanabara, as Arena dominated the countryside of Rio (Motta, 2000a, 2000b).

The coup was diffusely affected by local politics, especially the Federal District and later Guanabara and Rio de Janeiro. A political organization grounded on collusion was established to secure military governability, creating an administration based on the traffic of influence. This scenario has stimulated a corruption network that has characterized (and continues to characterize) Rio de Janeiro. Motta (2000a) defends the thesis that clientelism was one of the pillars of Rio's politics, therefore, responsible for transforming the administrative bureaucracy of the state and the country into a corruption device.

The 1964 Coup d'état placed into power a group composed of members of the military and businesspeople that stimulated this administrative structure. According to Filgueiras and Aranha (2011), the dictatorship reinforced local corruption devices to guarantee political stability. However, as we have previously identified, Rio de Janeiro stood out. The policy of “bica d`água," i.e., the State clientelism, built a profile of local administrators that assumes and continues in power with the commitment to reproducing such political practices.

In this context, the public works – mainly those for urban remodeling – were fundamental to answer the specific interests of local political groups. A network of corruption was established to extort public money (Filgueiras & Aranha, 2011). About this, it is not a coincidence that five former governors of Rio de Janeiro and one former mayor were arrested: Wellington Moreira Franco (governor from 1987 and 1991); Anthony Garotinho (governor from 1999 and 2002); Rosinha Garotinho (governor from 2003 and 2007); Sérgio Cabral (governor from 2007 and 2014), Luiz Fernando Pezão (governor from 2014 and 2018) and Marcelo Crivella (mayor from 2017 and 2020)¹⁴. This list suggests that the revitalization of the city's central area and, especially, the Porto Maravilha Project was amidst this set of disputes, tensions, and accusations of financial misappropriations that marked its implementation moments. There was more. To implement this Project there was the need for several changes and reconstructions of memory places in the city of Rio. Recent significant public works, mainly inaugurated during the dictatorial period, would be destroyed, further erasing the memory of Brazilians and cariocas about the dictatorship period, reinforcing the current conservative discourse that the dictatorship was a “good” period and the “restoration” of democracy. In fact, we can understand why former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro made his political career in Rio de Janeiro.

To better understand this process of erasing the Reformas Urbanas started and concluded during the dictatorship (1960-1975), we should focus on the work that crossed this whole period: the construction of Elevado da Perimetral [Perimetral Elevated Highway]. We will explore in the following topic some particularities involved in the projects and their inauguration phases.

The Elevado da Perimetral: from construction to demolition

The construction of Elevado da Perimetral¹⁵, an elevated highway to ease access to the International Airport of Galeão for those coming from the South area, was a work that continued with the sequence of Flamengo parks (Aterro do Flamengo). It was also a supplementary pathway over the Avenue Rodrigues Alves, which connected the main road junctions of the city of Rio (Oliveira, 2006).

The elevado was built in phases since the 1950s, and each part was inaugurated separately. The first, in 1960, connected Santos Dumont Airport and Nossa Senhora da Candelária Church. It went over Alfred Agache Avenue and the old Engenheiro Carlos Marques Pamplona Tunnel at XV Square. According to Oliveira (2006), the construction of the following part started in 1968 and took ten years to be finished. Finally, another part was inaugurated in 1978, encompassing the surroundings of Zona Portuária [Harbor Area], mostly located above Rodrigues Alves Avenue.

Thus, the Elevado gave way to the North region of the city, interconnecting 70% of the traffic leaving the South region towards the Rio-Niterói Bridge, the Vermelha Route, Brasil Avenue, and followed over Rodrigues Alves Avenue until the area of Santos Dumont Airport, where it connected with Infante Dom Henrique Avenue at Aterro do Flamengo, directly connecting Atlântica Avenue and other side streets to the South region shore (Abreu, 2006). It crossed the neighborhoods of Caju, part of São Cristóvão, Santo Cristo, Gamboa, and Saúde, holding traffic of over seventy thousand vehicles on workdays¹⁶.

The Elevado is normally criticized for having considerably changed the aesthetics of Gamboa wharf and blocking the view of the ocean from those in the city and the architectural layout for those in the ships. Another criticism of the area over Rodrigues Alves Avenue was that it made the avenue more dangerous, reducing the light, making it empty, and more prone to robbery. Besides the aesthetic issue, the Perimetral also devalued the houses located around the avenue due to the somber aspect of the place¹⁷. Thus, under the logic of government actions, the Porto Maravilha Project started to be promoted as a “solution” for these “problems”.

Therefore, for this project to continue, the Elevado da Perimetral needed to be put down, which, amidst the disputes and investments on the meaning production of the city's past, was defined by Eduardo Paes as a “Berlin Wall."¹⁸. However, at least two great questions were established as challenges for the implementation of this endeavor. The first referred to how the work would change the traffic in the city. Hence, as it was built, it was destroyed in phases. The second issue regarded the difficulties related to the destination of the metal beans that supported the Elevado. They decided to place it in a warehouse of the city hall, from where they were robbed in 2013, because of the quality of the material.¹⁹.

The destruction of Elevado da Perimetral became vital to create new and important places of memory interested in silencing and emerging other senses for the relations established between the past and the present of the city: MAR (2013), Museu do Amanhã (2015), AquaRio (2016), and the Ferris wheel Rio Yup Star (2019). Such destruction also fulfilled an important role that mayor Eduardo Paes wanted to play. He entered the Pantheon of mayors that changed the face of the city, giving it an air of "vintage modernity" as the memory locus of another glamourous and successful Rio de Janeiro, which supposedly existed in a distant past.

Finally, this mayor's actions allowed the construction of new places of memory, as previously stated. Such political conduct gave Eduardo Paes great visibility, so much so that four years after the end of his second government (2013-2016), he was reelected in 2020 for Rio's city hall, praised by a discourse of competence.

The Porto Maravilha Project: urban remodeling as a daily show

The Porto Maravilha Project is an initiative of Rio de Janeiro city hall connected with the preparations for the 450^th anniversary of the city. According to the Complementary Law n.º 102, from November 23, 2009²⁰, it aimed to recover the port region's urban infrastructure, transport, environment, and historical and cultural heritage. Its action radius encompassed an area of approximately five million square meters, including the neighborhoods of Santo Cristo, Gamboa, Saúde, and parts of the city center, Caju, Cidade Nova, and São Cristóvão.

Among the different works²¹ that encompassed this real-state development, in this study we opted to focus on the demolition of Elevado da Perimetral (with 4790 meters of extension, previously approached) in the construction of Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) and the Programa de Valorização da Memória e da Cultura Popular Carioca²² (Pró-Carioca) – we will explore the last two initiatives later.

Due to its strong impact on the city's everyday life, Porto Maravilha Project's development brought to light questions regarding the different urban renovations and their effects on social spaces and times. A constant point in these reflections was the lack of attention given to historicity, a characteristic of these renovation plans implemented in the city.

An example of this neglect regarding the historicity of events can be seen in the approximations that, under the logic of governmental actions, tried to be accomplished by Francisco Pereira Passos’s administration (1902-1906) – the tropical Haussmann²³ – and Eduardo Paes’s (2009-2016) one. To a point that Eduardo Paes considered dressing up as Pereira Passos for the inauguration ceremony of the first work phase in the Port Area in 2012²⁴.

Amidst these public works that invaded the city spaces and times daily, the governmental actions highlighted, every day, the revitalization and/or the urban beautification that would soon be reached. Thus, a period to convince and socially legitimize these undertakings.

In strategic terms, to reach this level of convincing and legitimation, the Porto Maravilha Project enacted some socialization, sensibilization, and promotion initiatives. For instance, the circulation of the magazine Revista Maravilha²⁵ or even in the structure of 588 m², called Meu Porto Maravilha²⁶, assembled in the Barão de Tefé Avenue.

Porto Maravilha Project highlighted the conversion of urban renovations into daily shows. Hovered over this conversion was the wish for the population to see these transformations as positive, be it the demotion of Elevado da Perimetral, the inauguration of different cultural centers (among them, MAR), or the renovation of areas considered as “degraded”, or even the sense/perception that Meu Porto Maravilha would allow cariocas to perceive the future as a dimension of the present, as Revista Maravilha used to publish.

In this panorama, with the implementation of the Porto Maravilha Project, there was also an effort to highlight certain narratives – silencing or even demolishing many others – about the city and its people. In other words, under the logic of their creators, the best was that the spaces created, the cultural equipment inaugurated and the public works.

In this framework, with the implementation of the Porto Maravilha Project, there was also an effort to stress some narratives – silencing or even demolishing many others – about the city and its people. In other words, the creators believed that the spaces created, the cultural equipment inaugurated, and the public works implemented would establish themselves as symbols of a new time, which would be accepted and taken in by the population. About this, the expectations on MAR and Pró-Carioca were emblematic.

Final remarks: a few words on MAR and Pró-Carioca

The Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) opened on March 1, 2013, in the city's 448th anniversary, as part of the 450^th anniversary of Rio de Janeiro. Under the chosen organizational logic, art, education, and (hi)stories should be intrinsically articulated. Dimensions that we can even perceive in the architectural project: by joining the buildings (the Museum and the Escola do Olhar), the circulation could only start, in strategic terms, by the Escola, so that, to reach the art, one needs to move through education and its (hi)stories (Melo, 2016). The spatial separation between the Pavilhão de Exposições and the Escola do Olhar equally alludes to the conceptions of a museum-school. Or a school with a museum or, even, a museum with a school (Carvalho, 2018). These articulations point out aspects related to the pedagogical dimension involved in the orchestration of MAR spaces and continue to be present in the types of learning that should, strategically, characterize the hours of visitation.

About the articulation sought between art, education, and (hi)stories, we also need to highlight that the architectural complex of MAR connects two buildings. The museum occupies the Palacete Dom João VI, built in the eclectic style in 1906, where was the Inspetoria de Portos, Rios e Canais do Rio. Escola do Olhar building was constructed in the 1940s. It housed the Terminal Rodoviário Mariano Procópio and the Hospital da Polícia Civil (which worked until the beginning of the urban intervention project, when the state gave it to the city of Rio de Janeiro to build MAR).

From the start, MAR was idealized, built, and inaugurated through a partnership between the city hall and the Fundação Roberto Marinho. The Organização Social Instituto Odeon (OSIO-Social Organization Odeon Institute)²⁷ became responsible for the management of this cultural equipment. The management contract was signed on April 2012, and its term was extended until 2017 when it was renovated. This partnership, established between the Secretaria Municipal de Cultura do Rio de Janeiro and OSIO, presupposes the fulfillment of some previously-defined operational and financial goals. The Companhia de Desenvolvimento Urbano da Região do Porto do Rio de Janeiro became responsible for budgetary transfers (Carvalho, 2018).

Regarding the political uses guided towards MAR, the representations endorsed by the Eduardo Paes government, as a rule, highlighted that the cultural equipment established dialogues with the stories of Rio. As stressed, we should remember that memories do not emerge spontaneously. When thinking about MAR and its intense publicity in newspapers, TV shows, magazines, and digital media, we should consider the intentions and interests in establishing, teaching, and disseminating some narratives about the city and its people.

Within the scope of this study, MAR’s wish to establish, teach, and disseminate some narratives contributes to seeing it as an integral part of a political project embraced by mayor Eduardo Paes to govern the people. In this sense, the circumstances that preceded its creation, followed its construction, and lingered after its inauguration, were analyzed as indications of investments that also wished to erase/silence aspects of a relatively recent past- certain dictatorship memories, particularly public works from the Reformas Urbanas [Urban Remodelling] (1960-1975). Among them, maybe the most import was the demotion of Elevado da Perimetral, as seen.

About the political project to govern the people, we should also shed light on another initiative related to the 450^th anniversary of Rio, which is entangled with the Porto Maravilha Project, the MAR, and the efforts to establish, teach, and disseminate some narratives for the city and its people, the Pró-Carioca program (Programa de Valorização da Memória e da Cultura Popular Carioca- Program to Value Carioca’s Memory and Popular Culture ), established by the Decree n.º 38 724/14 of Rio de Janeiro City Hall. To start, we highlight some excepts of the Decree to point out some aspects that stimulated its creation:

CONSIDERING the Decree nº 38.146 from December 5, 2013, about the celebrations of 450 years of the historical foundation of Rio de Janeiro aiming to promote and incentivize activities and projects allusive to the culture, memory, and identity of carioca people [added highlight];

CONSIDERING the symbolism of the 450^th anniversary, it represents the occasion to celebrate the memory of Rio, its characters, its multiple movements, and artistic expressions, and the diversity of cultural and social manifestations of carioca people, as the protagonists of this history [added highlight].

(Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio, Decreto n.º 38 724, 2014)

Among the investments regarding the promotion and incentive to memory, identity, and history of Rio people, articles 5 and 6 are very interesting to what we wish to analyze:

Art. 5. The municipal public schools should weekly execute, in a specific and simultaneous ceremony, the Anthem of Rio de Janeiro and the raising of the city flag.

Art. 6. The Education Municipal Secretary will incentivize the development of pedagogical works and actions allusive to the history of the City, to carioca popular culture, its characters, and their artistic manifestations, mainly in the period of the city's 450 years of celebration.

(Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio, Decreto n.º 38 724, 2014)

Once again, when reading these excerpts, we can perceive some aspects related to the actions promoted by the Municipal Administration that sought to boost the articulations between memories, identities, narratives of the city, and the invention of traditions in carioca social groups. To do so, we should guide our focus towards the mobility of social intervention that could stimulate the emergence of a “set of practices normally regulated by tactic rules or openly accepted; [that] aim to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior through repetition” (Hobsbawm, 1984, p. 9). In this point, the allusion is toward primary schooling, mainly due to its capacity to daily instil, raise, disseminate, and create new traditions, "mobilizing feelings, experiences, and symbols" (Boto, 2014, p. 102).

Raising the flag and chanting the city anthem in weekly pedagogical activities are highly meaningful. After all, as has been explored in History and History of Education, the epithet Cidade Maravilhosa [Marvelous City] has been the object of controversies.

According to Clarice Nunes (1996) and Renato C. Gomes (1994), the French poet Jeanne Catulle Mendès was the first to coin this expression during her visit to Rio in 1912. However, Oswaldo P. Rocha (1986) and Sidney Chalhoub (1986), state that Coelho Neto was the first to use this adjective, in 1908. Despite the controversies, its broad popularization was due to the carnival song composed by André Filho (Antônio André de Sá Filho) in 1934, officialized as the city’s anthem in 1960 – which, as we analyzed, was when the Reformas Urbanas started.

The remarks on the consolidation of the epithet (after all, why, “maravilhosa”?) and the investments mobilized to celebrate its 450^th anniversary (the Porto Maravilha Project, the MAR, the Pró-Carioca) point out that the efforts to establish, teach, and disseminate certain historical senses (in our analyzed example the attempt to erase some initiatives supported by the dictatorial regime) continue to occupy privileged spaces in the agenda of governmental concerns. To shed light, even if explanatorily, on some of these mobilizations and efforts can contribute to raising the possibility of building other training and education projects for the city and its people. At least, this is our expectation and, in a sense, our invitation.

• 1
  Thematic dossier organized by: José Cláudio Sooma Silva <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3647-8703> and José Antonio Miranda Sepulveda <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4460-7704>
• 3
  References correction and bibliographic normalization services: Vera Lúcia Fator Gouvêa Bonilha - <[e-mail]>
• 4
  Funding: CAPES-PROEX-Project 0446/2021.
• 5
  English version: Viviane Ramos <[e-mail]>
• 5
  English version: Viviane Ramos <[e-mail]>
• 6
  According to former president Bolsonaro, the 1964 Coup d’état, which he called a movement, occurred to defend democracy. In 2021, he ordered the Military Commands to celebrate the anniversary of the Revolution (movement). In a note published in Ordem do Dia, signed by three commands of the Armed Forces, the then Minister of Defense Walter Braga Neto (who substituted Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva on the same day) highlighted in the opening phrase of the document that "the 1964 Movement is a milestone for Brazilian democracy. Brazil reacted with determination against the threats formed at the time”. Such an event shows the thesis defended by the former president that the coup was done to avoid a communist revolution in Brazil, hence, in the name of democracy. Such conflicting information gives clues for an understanding that the project of the nation defended by Bolsonaro’s government intends to revise and deny Brazilian history, creating new traditions. About this, see: <https://abn.com.br/forcas-armadas-divulgam-ordem-do-dia-alusiva-ao-31-de-marco-de-1964/>. <https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-quer-quarteis-comemorando-golpe-de-64-generais-sugerem-cautela/>.
• 7
  Among the countless studies that analyze the construction of Brazilian and the political, economic, social, and cultural effects on Rio de Janeiro, see Abreu (2006), Almino (2007), and Freitag (2003).
• 8
  For further information on the urban works of Lacerda, see the studies of Perez (2007), Gasparini (2004), and Leal (1997).
• 9
  For the removal of communities in Rio de Janeiro, see Abreu (2006), Brum (2012), and Cardoso (2009, 2010).
• 10
  For further information, see: <https://cpdoc.fgv.br/producao/dossies/JK/biografias/negrao_de_lima>.
• 11
  For further information see: <http://www.fgv.br/cpdoc/acervo/dicionarios/verbete-biografico/antonio-de-padua-chagas-freitas>.
• 12
  According to the reflections of Lia Faria (2011), chaguism shows itself in clientelism practices using the so-called “political administration” to make antidemocratic expedients.
• 13
  According to Trindade (2000), "bica d’água” refers to the clientelism and regionalist way Chagas Freitas ruled the state. As there was a severe water supply problem, the governor allied with local politicians. He created a style of making policy mainly concerned with attending to the population demands (water supply) associated with the investment done in the elections through valuing votes. http://www.fgv.br/cpdoc/acervo/dicionarios/verbete-biografico/antonio-de-padua-chagas-freitas>.
• 14
  Governor Wilson Witzel – elected for office in the period between 2019 to 2023– was impeached, leaving office on April 2021.
• 15
  For further information, see: <https://diariodorio.com/historia-do-elevado-da-perimetral/>.
• 16
  About this, see: <https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2013/11/02/elevado-da-perimetral-no-rio-e-fechado-definitivamente-neste-sabado.htm>.
• 17
  To understand the impacts of urban renovation connected to Flamengo park and its consequences on the city, see Oliveira (2006), Abreu (2006), Perez (2007), and Leal (1997).
• 18
  According to Eduardo Paes, in a publication in the newspaper O Dia (December 5, 2014), the Perimetral divided the city as a “Berlin Wall” <https://odia.ig.com.br/noticia/rio-de-janeiro/2014-12-05/eduardo-paes-compara-derrubada-da-perimetral-a-queda-do-muro-de-berlim.html>.
• 19
  Six beans were robbed: five were 40 m long by 6 m high, and another was 25 m by 6m wide. The estimated value of the beans was R$ 100 thousand in 2013. <https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2013/10/1354722-policia-diz-que-roubo-vigas-foi-bem-planejado-e-durou-uma-semana.shtml>.
• 20
  The legal milestone to requalify the Port Region took place with the creation of the Partner Urban Operation on December 2009, with the approval of Complementary City Laws 101 and 102. The legislation created the Porto Maravilha, established rules for the investment in infrastructure in the area, and the Companhia de Desenvolvimento Urbano da Região do Porto do Rio de Janeiro (CDURP) to implement the project. Two events decisively contributed to implementing this initiative: the choice of Brazil to host the 2014 Soccer World Championship and the city for the 2016 Olympic Games. The expectations raised to welcome those events helped to create an atmosphere open to investments and alliances between the municipal, state, and federal spheres, aiming to raise funds with the private initiative.
• 21
  Besides those registered previously, we highlight the construction of Tunnel Rio 450, the Prefeito Marcello Allencar Tunnel's inauguration, and the light rail transit (LRT) implementation.
• 22
  Translation note: Carioca refers to the people and things from the city of Rio de Janeiro. Those from the state of Rio de Janeiro are referred as fluminense.
• 23
  This approximation between Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann and Pereira Passos is well known. However, two other dimensions involved in this nickname – “Tropical Haussmann” – are less known: 1) as a worker at the Brazilian embassy in Paris from 1857 to 1860, Pereira Passos personally followed the renovation of the French capital. For 17 years (1853-1870), Haussmann was responsible for the planning of the city; 2) Pereira Passos, from 1880 to 1881, attended courses at Sorbonne and Collège de France (Azevedo, 2003; Benchimol, 1992; Pinheiro & Fialho Júnior, 2006).
• 24
  <https://oglobo.globo.com/rio/em-campanha-paes-tenta-vincular-sua-imagem-as-transformacoes-feitas-por-pereira-passos-5433676>.
• 25
  This magazine was released in March 2020 and had 22 issues, the last on December 2016. As the name suggests, it mainly focused on disseminating the benefits and wonders the renovations would achieve.
• 26
  It was inaugurated on July 2012 and worked until the end of 2015. It was a space of exhibitions intended to familiarize the population with the urban renovations from the Porto Maravilha Project, through maps, infographics, photos, and videos of the works and perspectives (Carvalho, 2018).
• 27
  The Instituto Odeon is a private cultural association, not-for-profit, aiming to promote the management and cultural and artistic production of excellence, dialoguing with education and adding public value to society. The Instituto was formed from the broadening of Odeon Companhia Teatral, an organization created in 1998. Classified as an Organização Social (OS-Social Organization) in Rio de Janeiro, Instituto Odeon became in 2012, a partner of the city hall in the management of Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR. <http://institutoodeon.org.br/conheca-o-instituto/>.

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2

Responsible editor: André Luiz Paulilo <https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8112-8070>

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Aug 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  12 Apr 2021
• Reviewed
  28 Sept 2021
• Accepted
  10 Dec 2021