This is not really the commonly held vision of life in northeastern Brazil—it is neither the sleepy, tropical paradise nor the chaotic and dangerous mega-city. But this economic landscape is already and increasingly the norm. The number of shopping malls in Brazil doubled between 2008 and 2013.
As Brazilian cities upgrade and modernize—mostly in preparation for upcoming mega-events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup—it’s worth asking what they’re aspiring toward. Development efforts are in full swing and economic growth is generally positive, driven by a newly sprouted and rapidly growing middle class, eager to consume. Yet relatively basic issues of housing, transportation, schools, etc., remain unresolved and perpetually confused. (...)
Though Brazilian architecture and urban design has always been strongly influenced by modernism, it is in fact, and in image, chaotic. Spaghetti-strung streets, unregulated development and commerce of every type spring up wherever the opportunity presents itself. While the scale of the formal design may not be human, that has little to do with how people actually use the city. Ultimately, Brazilian cities are not known for the monuments of Le Corbusier, CIAM or even Oscar Niemeyer. They’re known for the favelas—squatter settlements and shantytowns, swaths of informal neighborhoods that occupy every unused space, often illegally, and often as the only option for the very poor. And that image, like the reality of the Brazilian city, has its own logic.
This logic has been increasingly valued by planners and designers in the developed world. As the Brazilian urban and economic landscape begins to model itself on the North, American and European planners talk of creating places that look more like the South. Favela chic, beyond just being fashionable, is viewed by some as an innovative system for future development: self-generating communities that are lively, walkable and mixed-use. The favela is seen as an open studio for architectural and planning practices in the West that seek to both improve and learn from the informal city. Everyday urbanism, studies of informality and ecological approaches extol the virtues of the piecemeal, inherently participatory appropriations of urban spaces. These borrowed styles are possibly a necessity for ideals of sustainability to be realized in Seattle and other places. Changing urban sensibilities and definitions of “quality of life” underlie the genuinely psychological appeal of favela chic. The attraction to these “minor architectures,” as Jill Stoner of Berkeley puts it, is clearly aesthetic and perhaps also personal. In Shantytown, Aira notes: “Those dollhouse-like constructions had their charm, precisely because of their fragility and their thrown-together look. . . . They simplified things enormously. For someone wearied or overwhelmed by the complexities of middle-class life, they could seem to offer a solution.”
At the same time, favela chic is also correctly criticized for its tendency to aestheticize poverty.
by Lisa Sturdivant, Arcade | Read more:
Image: Lisa Sturdivant
