Reconstituição histórico temporal da Exposição Internacional do Centenário da Independência

Abstract

The International Exhibition of the Centenary of Independence of Brazil took place between the dismantling of Morro do Castelo and the respective embankment of Praia de Santa Luzia, in Rio de Janeiro, in 1922/23. Widely studied by several disciplines, the official commemoration of the centenary, about to turn 100 years old, has already been the subject of publications in the area of ​​urban and architectural studies, with emphasis on the texts of Ângela Martins (1998), Ruth Levy (2010), Raquel Coutinho da Silva (2012), and Margareth Pereira (2013). However, having lasted 10 months, between September 1922 and July 1923, the exhibition grounds, with their street layout, landscape treatment, urban furniture, and pavilions, cannot be considered a finished work, as the maps and photographs released by the officials agencies of the celebration try to demonstrate. The works carried out by Mayor Carlos Sampaio (KESSEL, 2001) and the considerable increase in the number of cars and visitors, the changes brought about by night public lighting, the custom of the summer holiday and city events, such as Carnival, continually transformed the space of the exhibition, which never operated with all the pavilions opened. As usually happens in large events organized in times of political turmoil, as was the case in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, the constant changes in guidelines and projects meant that the exhibition was inaugurated with only five pavilions opened to the public, and closed when five of the main pavilions were already empty. The objective of the research we are developing is to reconstruct and analyze the exhibition grounds during the process of its construction and permanence, generating a representation of the exhibition “in progress”, as already done in relation to the dismantling of Morro do Castelo (2007), operation combined with the construction of the exhibition grounds. We believe that, in this way, we can visualize the scenario of the celebrations in their true urban dimension. The temporal map of these transformations may also help us to answer some questions: 1) The creation of an unofficial image of the exhibition, which allows us to evaluate how it was incorporated into the dynamics of the city, in addition to the events of September, when foreign authorities were present; 2) Understand how the immediate events changed the initial design of the grounds; 3) Understand how the pavilions were adapting to the place, since this was a “new” territory, the result of a recent grounding, with inaccurate edges, which were constantly changing - in one of them the sea and the embankment that evolved and in another a hill “in dismount”. What would have been the references for building the pavilions? 4) In relation to the new nighttime urban dynamics, made possible by electric public lighting, how would the exposure have impacted on this custom, considering also that Rio went through periods of State of Siege?