The Relation Between Nature, Landscape and Urban Space in the Projects of Roberto Burle Marx for the City of Águas de Lindóia, Brazil.

Transcription

1 UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress P The Relation Between Nature, Landscape and Urban Space in the Projects of Roberto Burle Marx for the City of Águas de Lindóia, Brazil. Samuel M. Mantovani, *1, Luiz A. M. Costa 2 1 Master Degree Candidate, PUC-Campinas, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Campinas (SP), Brazil 2 Full Professor, PUC-Campinas, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Campinas (SP), Brazil Abstract This paper has a main purpose to analyze the relationship between nature and city in the landscaping work of architect Roberto Burle Marx for the city of Águas de Lindóia, São Paulo, Brazil, in the middle of the 20th century, in order to investigate how the Architecture of the Brazilian Modern Movement related the constructed space with the natural or projected landscape. Important projects were analyzed in the city, the New Bathhouse and the Adhemar de Barros Square. In both cases we will observe the integration between architecture and nature and its relation with the preexisting landscape and the one that was later formed. We identified that the landscape of Águas de Lindóia underwent a profound alteration with these interventions in the city urban space, revealing the existing relations between nature and city in the interstice of Architecture of the Brazilian Modern Movement. The methodology used was based on the analysis of old photographics, oral historiography and technical visits in the projects that gave us subsidies to reconstitute the aerial image of the city in the middle 1950 s. This image contributed to analyze the urban landscape transformation in two moments, before and after the implantations of the Burle Marx projects. Keywords: Roberto Burle Marx; Nature; Landscape; Urban Space; Águas de Lindóia; 1. Introduction The analysis of the relationships between nature, landscape and space through the projects of Roberto Burle Marx for Águas de Lindóia, Brazil, contributed for understanding the construction of the landscape in the urban ideology of the architecture of the Brazilian Modern Movement. These projects related the materialized and projected space with nature, configuring a new urban space through a new landscape in which nature and city, mutually, complement each other. The examples that will be presented here seek throughout the analyzed projects to bring nature into the city, as a continuation of it, integrating both of them. In the city of Águas de Lindóia this approach between architecture and nature through the urban objects conceived by Roberto Burle Marx reflected on the impact they had on local urban development over time * Contact Author: Samuel Machado Mantovani, Master Degree Candidate, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas, Rodovia D. Pedro I, km 136, CEP , Campinas, SP, Brazil. Tel: samuelmantovani@hotmail.com (The publisher will insert here: received, accepted) UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 1

2 and on the transformations that occurred in the characteristics of the county, modifying its rural characteristics into a modernist city. Analyzing the projects, Burle Marx seeks to assimilate in his work the integration between constructed object and natural environment in which we can verify the multiple sensations of the projected space and the elements that integrate the architecture and the landscape, incorporating a critical vision of the project and the elements that compose it. In these cases the landscaping design begins to participate in the design of the territory. Thus, using aerial images of the city and oral historiography as methodology we identify that Burle Marx's work in Águas de Lindóia is more than just a landscape project, but also assumes characteristics of urban and territorial planning. 2. Brief history of the formation of Águas de Lindóia in the middle 1950 s Águas de Lindóia is a small city in the southeast of São Paulo state, Brazil, and it s known as the thermal capital of the country, due to its therapeutic properties from its sources of radioactive water. Its beginning refers to the 17 th century, a period with a great flow of tropeiros and bandeirantes (a group of people that used to penetrated the hinterland of the state searching for riches). They baptized the region as "Águas Quentes" (Hot Waters), and used it as a strategic point for landing, rest and to take care of the injuries of their long trips. They were primarily responsible for initiating the propagation of the waters that flowed there on rocks formed about two billion years ago to other regions; and also the first to enjoy their medicinal properties, which offered a new opportunity for healing of skin ailments and rheumatism, Silva (2005). Before this period, the region was extremely inhospitable, due to the intact Atlantic Forest, only a few Indians lived nearby. It was only in the 19 th century that the first nucleus of residents of the region originated (Archives of the Municipal Library of Águas de Lindóia). With the fertile soil found there, land acquisition became inevitable and at the beginning of this century the coffee farms, Brazilian exponents of export at that time, devastated the natural territory. At the beginning of the 20 th century with the acquisition of the "hot waters" lands by the Italian immigrant Dr. Francisco Tozzi in an auction, the coffee scenery of the region began to change and the water began to be exploited economically. The first facilities of "Thermas de Lindoya" were built, provided by the doctor's own finances, and characterized by vernacular architecture and remote urban organization, without roads and sidewalks, as identified in the old photos of the city. It was not long before and as a result of the first investments, the territory already profited with the tourists. In order to improve the conditions to use the thermal water, in the decade of 1910, the construction of the first bathhouse of the "Thermas de Lindoya" began, Tozzi (1987). These projects and the radioactive swimming pool that would arise in the 1930 s, further increased the flow of tourists to the region. Thus, in the following decades, several projects were carried out to meet this demand, both from a private point of view, with hotels and commerce, as well as the large amounts invested from the public side in works and urban improvements. These funds from the state government reached high values, mainly driven to build an attractive landscape for the hot springs, Franco (2005). Therefore, in March 1942, with the state funding, the engineering office Linderberg and Assumpção won the competition among four other proposals to execute the urbanism plan and works of water supply and the sewage network of the region. This project occurred during the administration of Mayor Eduardo Martins, from 1942 to 1946, and it was fully implemented during this period, qualifying the street space, defining a zoning and proposing subdivisions for the region (Administrative Report from 1942 to 1946). The project sought the existence of extensive green areas and low population density to maintain the beautiful visuals of the locality, in which the improvements of the new proposal qualified mainly the urban infrastructure and the sanitation of the territory. The decade of 1950 was an important moment for the territory. In 1954, the administrative center of the neighboring town, Lindóia, was transferred to the region of Thermas de Lindoya and the territory was renamed Águas de Lindóia, reaching its administrative political emancipation. Thereby, with greater autonomy in local governance, in 1956, the engineer and architect Luis Saia was hired by the public management to carry out the first Master Plan for the new county of Águas de Lindóia. The project had a zoning plan, a road plan and a park system 2 UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress

3 plan that incorporated the area of the New Bathhouse and the Adhemar de Barros Square (Administrative Report from 1956 to 1959). The project brought public interventions to the territory in this decade, that became a real construction site with new built spaces. The Master Plan of Saia and the works of Oswaldo Arthur Bratke, with the project of the New Bathhoouse building, and Roberto Burle Marx, with its landscaping and the elaboration of the project for Adhemar de Barros Square, transformed the typically rural pattern of the locality, to a typically modern city. Roberto Burle Marx was very important in this process by narrowing the relationship between the Bathhouse natural landscape and the conceived and built space of Águas de Lindóia, creating a new urban landscape. In this way, the city entered into the national tourist scenery in the 1960 s as a healing place, but also leisure. 3. The Urban Landscape Concept The relationship between nature, city and urban space in Burle Marx's work in Águas de Lindóia addresses the broad concept of urban landscape, which can be defined as the sum of anthropic actions and natural phenomena that affect the territory, linked to the social life and the geographic space. According to Ortigoza, (2010) the landscape is the most immediate and momentary materialization of social life, and, therefore, it needs to be analyzed in the context of daily life, the representations of nature and their meanings. Thereby, both representations of the landscape and culture are constituents of the socio-spatial identity of a city. Given these assumptions, the landscape when analyzed may be historically contextualized. Thus, the city expresses years of interventions on the territory in its urban landscape, always unique and distinct, since each territory and culture express their multiplicities and divergences. In this sense, Santos (1996) conceives the landscape as a materialization of geographic space, interpreting it as a set of forms, so that, at a given moment, it expresses the inheritances that represent the successive relations between man and nature. In this way, it is important to understand the relations between the public power, the private power, the resident and floating population, the tourist demands and the particular desires of the agents that act on the territory; these factors combined with the historical process of occupation, the local culture and the morphology of the territory, with regard to its relief, topography, hydrography and pre-existing nature, lead to the formation of the urban landscape. Therefore, Ortigoza (2010) endorses the fact that it is important to read the existing landscape recognizing that it is not simply a clump of disorderly geographic elements but rather the result of a dynamic, moving and constantly changing combination of physical, biological, and socials. 4. The reconstitution of the aerial image of Águas De Lindóia, in the middle of the 20 th century. The image of the middle of the 20th century was important to understand the urban and natural landscape of the city at that time allowed a territorial analysis in the period prior the urban interventions for the moment after their implantations, as well as the reading of the landscape of the city in two moments, identifying the transformations occurred with the impact of the Burle Marx's projects which modified the characteristics of the territory. The reconstitution of the aerial image of Águas de Lindóia was elaborated in four phases. The first corresponds to the identification of the historical period that would better evidence the facts that we wanted to recognize and analyze. The second step was the elaboration of a satellite image of the study area, extracted from Google Earth, to understand the territory today and use it as an editing base for the image of the previous period. The third step involves the analysis and synthesis of the primary data with old photographs and oral information in order to confront them with the current satellite image to understand a hypothesis of the city's configuration in the middle 20th century. The last step involves the artisanal work of producing the image using specific editing software, Adobe Photoshop, seeking the closest representation of the reality at that time. The analysis of aerial images of the Adhemar de Barros Square and the New Bathhouse projects, shows the short distance between them and their large size compared to a small city at that time, with a low number of buildings and in an initial urbanization process. These projects are based on Modernist logic, and also in the modernization of the spaces, acting as an instrument of public policy used to UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 3

4 boost the economic and urban development of a touristic city in order to structure the territory from the impacts caused beyond the limits of the interventions. The impacts of the implantations were felt in the short term, by tourism and the economy, and in the long term, in the process of territorial urbanization. Once the urban objects would materialize in association with the conception of Saia Master Plan, their justifications would broaden, and their chances of provoking greater positive impacts would be multiplied, reflecting directly in the flow of people to the region. In fact, these projects were connected to Luis Saia's Master Plan for Águas de Lindóia, which developed an area called "Parque Balneário" (Bathhouse Park), which would be destined for an extensive park in the heart of the city, in the lowest valley of the region, Franco (2005). Thus, the rural environment gave way to the modernist landscape, introducing the public space into the private space. The permeability and fluidity of the projects spaces allowed the people to walk long distances between built space and nature without having to get around blocks or buildings. Architecture and nature come together amidst the landscape features and the generous spaces of the interventions that allow an extensive visual distance from the immediate surroundings, but also a broad observation from the outside for those inside the building's internal environment. Fig.1. On the left is the reconstituted aerial image of the city; middle of decade 1950 s. On the right is the satellite image of the city; year Source: Google Earth and Adobe Photoshop, by author. 5. The New Bathhouse After the political emancipation of the city in 1954 (IBGE), the public sphere's intentions to make the territory a tourist point of attraction in Brazil, caused that local government contracted Brazilian modernist architects to act on the territory. At this moment Roberto Burle Marx is hired to conceive the landscape projects of Águas de Lindóia; The New Bathhouse and the Adhemar de Barros Square. We have identified that these projects are more than just landscape conceptions, they are also important urban infrastructure works, which requalified the central environment of the city and has reflections in the landscape of the city until nowadays, integrating the natural space and built environment. In the same year, in 1954, the old bathhouse gave rise to a new project, with the intention to improve the conditions of using the thermal water for the people. The construction of the New Bathhouse took five years and the building was inaugurated on November 1, For the conception, in addition to Roberto Burle Marx in the landscaping, the project had the Brazilian architect modernist Oswaldo Arthur Bratke, responsible for the building. The project sought to reject the already conceived and universalized architecture in order to introduce new elements, bringing something different to the observation of the people and reinventing the region of thermas. In this way, there is an intense proximity of the structural elements of the building with the projected landscape that shapes the natural and composes the notion and image of the place. Thus, the architectural conception "takes advantage of the characteristics of the terrain and the surrounding landscape, respecting the natural 4 UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress

5 depression that defines the area in the implantation of the extensive needs program" (Segawa, 1997, p201), but more than that, it is the result of the association between the architectural project and nature, conforming an environment transformed by architecture that relates directly to the preexisting space, allowing distinct visuals of the project, both from the internal and external environments. The extensive horizontal volume supported by pilotis is viewed longitudinally in throughout the valley depression. A second building ingrained in the valley, in its cover is implanted a roof garden with zenithal illumination through plastic skylights that intensify the permeability of nature external to the building, without distinguishing what is the space of the project for what is the space of the city. In the central part of the New Bathhouse there is an internal courtyard that pops up the landscape projected by Burle Marx that interacts with mirrors of water. In this way, the landscape design is associated with architecture and nature to be connected to the city environment as a continuation that does not separate the nature from the urban. Fig.2. The New Bathhouse. Source: Accessed on: 05/05/ The Adhemar de Barros Square. The landscaping project of Adhemar de Barros Square is located in a large central area of the city. The square that assumes park characteristics due to its size was originated in the year of 1950, when it was declared a public utility area to build a park (IBGE), but only in 1963 began its work, taking years to materialize. It was necessary at that time, in Águas de Lindóia, to construct an area that presupposed a transformation that was adapted to direct use as a convivial space. Previously the region already had undergone some changes of its naturalness, a dam was built to contain the waters forming a lake, just as some paths were materialized for the internal flow of the area, but it was with the project of Burle Marx that the landscape changed significantly, with his characteristic design that transformed the entire area of Intervention, including the redesign of the lake, qualifying the large public area of the city in terms of built space, leisure and socialization. The project of the square / park follows the relief in an extensive central area of the city, allowing sights, both in the upper quotas of the square, as well as the lower parts of the project, that establish a contrast between the projected vegetation plan, the natural plan, mainly in the mountains of the city, and the construct plan around the projects. The organic design of the pedestrian paths, characterized by Portuguese mosaics, allows the flow of people in the internal spaces of the square. As well as the New Bathhouse, Burle Marx groups the trees and the vegetation of the same species, highlighting and isolating them into the landscape, marked by informality, naturalness and without a regular planting metric. He conceives an extensive lawn in the spaces so that the citizens penetrate in the middle of the projected landscape. The most striking intervention was the alteration of the design of the lake that existed before, making it more winding, as well as the internal routes that were totally changed in relation to the previous paths of the place. The square is idealized as a sum of landscape elements that compose the project, closely related to the urban one, since it does not compete with the constructed landscape and allows a contemplative distance with respect to the nearby architecture. Thus, it does not exceed the physical limit of locomotion along the paths, in spite of the extensive space, and it dialogs with the natural scenery in which it is inserted. Junior (1994) points out that the work of Roberto Burle Marx reveals a deep UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress 5

6 discovery of nature and design, representing a great challenge and encouragement to the sensibility, in this way, the sensorial presence in the place is sharpened by the multiple interpretations of space. In the case of Adhemar de Barros Square, the landscaper creates a free urban space for contemplation and not simply a public green area. This project is not only defined in function of the existing architecture around it, but becomes a continuity of the urban space, above all, revealing the characteristics of a Modern City. Fig.3. Adhemar de Barros Square. Source: Historical Archives of the Municipal Library of Águas de Lindóia. 7. Conclusion The projects presented brought a new identity to Águas de Lindóia, modern and progressive, but in addition, the city developed urbanistically from these conceptions of urban spaces. The works explained were not only formal and aesthetic, but the landscape as an integration between nature and the city, moreover, the work of Burle Marx is also a consequence of the relations with the environment and the surroundings of the projects. In this perspective, the relation of his work with nature is ambiguous, if, on the one hand, he ignored the hydrography and topography of the intervention area, modifying the lands significantly; on the other hand, he approached the project from the preexisting nature In the surroundings. In this way, Burle Marx's projects in the territory qualified the main areas of the city in terms of public space and built, as well as places of conviviality and leisure, having the great virtue the integration of architecture and urbanism with nature of Águas de Lindóia. In short, his work is more than a landscape intervention, assuming characteristics of a project in the logic of urban and territorial planning for the city, which led the territorial development over the years harmoniously approaching the nature of the built space. References 1) City Hall of the Águas de Lindóia (1946). Administrative Report of the Period from 1942 to Águas de Lindóia, Brazil. 2) City Hall of the Águas de Lindóia (1959). Administrative Report of the Period 1956 to Águas de Lindóia, Brazil. 3) Historical Archives of the Municipal Library of Águas de Lindóia. 4) Franco, A.C. (2005). Cities of Cure, Cities of Leisure: The influence of foreign conceptions in the urban planning of three São Paulo resorts: Águas de Lindóia, Águas da Prata and Águas de São Pedro São Carlos, Brazil: Masters Dissertation. 5) IBGE - Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Águas de Lindóia - Historic. Available at: < biblioteca.ibge.gov.br /visualizacao/ dtbs/saopaulo/ aguasdelindoia.pdf>. [Accessed on: 25 March, 2017]. 6) Junior, E. S. (1994). Full Landscape. Short trip for the work of Burle Marx. Projeto Design, São Paulo, Brazil, n ) Ortigoza, S. A. G. (2010). Landscapes of Consumption: Urban Landscapes: Images and Representations of the World of Consumption.UNESP; São Paulo, Brazil: SciELO. 8) Santos, M. (1996) The Nature of Space: Technique and Time. Reason and Emotion. São Paulo, Brazil: Hucitec. 9) Segawa, H. (1997) Oswaldo Arthur Bratke. São Paulo, Brazil: ProEditores. 10) Silva, João Paulo de Campos e. Historical Guide to Águas de Lindóia Editora Átomo Campinas SP, ) Site: Accessed on: 05/05/ ) Tozzi, M. The City of the Blue Waters. Editora Zoomgraf-K Ltda UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress