Urban projects and landscape in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

This paper focus on urban projects practice during recent decades in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and its relationship with the urban landscape. The city of Rio de Janeiro can be considered as a laboratory of urban practices on the basis of projects from different nature and scope recently implemented in the city. Driven by the democratization of the country in the 1980s, the first projects aimed to encourage community participation and attraction of various social actors. Urban themes such as the protection of historic sites and slum upgrading have been included in the urban agenda. During the 1990’s new visions about the city marked the interventions which aimed to insert Rio de Janeiro in the circuit of "global cities", of the strategic planning, of the public private partnerships, the relaxation of urbanistic law and the fight against urban disorder. The urban design had become essential in the public intervention strategy, dealing with subjects such as public spaces, slums and central areas. These spaces’ urban design was the structuring element of the proposed actions. Along the 2000s the characteristics of urban projects changed. On one hand there are the architectural projects of great impact, some signed by architects from the international star system. On the other hand, across the city projects are undergoing following the international sports events agenda: Pan American Games (2007) World Cup of Football (2014) and the Olympic Games (2016). From this perspective, urban landscape changes according to each urban projects "generation", and this paper aims to address the spatial and landscape transformations due to this process.