Time and space: Portuguese origins in Oscar Niemeyer's urban decisions

Abstract

Did urbanism in Brazil appropriate the urban tradition to the same extent as pioneering modern architecture? This article builds an answer to this question, which goes through the theoretical unraveling of the definition of the term space from the recognition of two historically accepted conceptions. It starts with a brief presentation of the main genealogies and principles of these conceptions, as methodological support to read their impact on the work of Oscar Niemeyer. It looks at the design strategies used in two works of the architect: the project for Praça XV in Rio de Janeiro (1991) and the urban complex of Pena Furada, in Portugal (1965). With notions borrowed from other disciplinary fields an interpretation of the incorporation of time as a mediating element of spatial experience is proposed: as a literal landmark - printed in concrete references to tradition - and as a generating element of spatial decisions - when incorporated into the experience of displacement.