Architecture and urbanism in Brazil, a critical study on thirty years of history

Over the past decade, studies on architecture and urbanism have gained in visibility in Brazil. This tendency is illustrated not only by the increasing number of vocational and academic programs related to these two fields offering a concentration in history, but also by the creation of specialized publishing houses and the presence of historians and critics of architecture and urbanism in mainstream newspapers. It has also led to the organization of conferences and lectures on cities and their histories and brought to light studies by the professional biographers of architects and urban planners. In addition, it has also resulted in the circulation of dozens of Brazilian scholars, who fill auditoriums and present the results of their investigations during international colloquiums and seminars. This article discusses recent developments shaping professionalization in the fields of architectural and urban history. It seeks to record the practices of individual protagonists and groups working in Brazil, their different contributions, and the tensions between sustained or shifting theoretical orientations. In a more implicit fashion, it invites reflection on the many and fluid interactions that, in a given period and place, comprise a field of thought and action that cannot be dissociated from a history conjugated and constructed in the present.