Minha Casa – Nossa Cidade

 

From ‘Minha Vida’ to ‘Nossa Cidade’
An introduction to the publication ‚Minha Casa—Nossa Cidade‘
Ruby Press, Berlin 2014

 

We feel alike, we feel akin in the towns, in the villages, in the settlements; not because we suffer from afflictions and irritations, the law and the police, but because the love of the streets unites us, levels us, brings us together. […] The street continues, killing nouns, transforming the meaning of words, imposing on the dictionaries the term it invents, creating the jargon that will become the standard legacy of the lexicons of tomorrow.
João do Rio, The enchanting soul of the streets, 1908[1]

 

The present book publication arrives in a moment of change. The exhibition „Minha Casa—Nossa Cidade. Innovating Popular Housing in Brazil“ preceding this publication was opened at the same time that a major event in the country’s history took place in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Millions of people from different social classes were filling the public spaces in front of the exhibition space, demanding affordable public transportation, better educational and healthcare systems, and denouncing corruption and the misuse of public goods for private interests. The sudden explosion of collective energy mainly revealed the discrepancy between the aspirations of a country that gradually has to assume a leading role as a world power and the social reality in Brazil, which falls far short of its promise. But the protest also stands for the outburst of a crisis that affects many other national economies of the world. Under the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism, social welfare, health security and common facilities are dismantled in favor of private interests and the dominance of big corporations—in other words, the very basis for the collective project of the city is threatened.

 

The arguments that mobilized the masses in this particular historic moment coincided perfectly with the ambition of the present work. As the title „Minha Casa—Nossa Cidade“ (My House—Our City) indicates, the social transformation that the proposals of this publication are promoting concerns the shift from the provision of standardized private homes to the „production in common“ of urban and rural environments that offer adequate living quality for low-income populations.

 

In reference to the name of the federal program for low-income housing „Minha Casa, Minha Vida“ (My House, My Life), the present work’s investigation deals with the Brazilian government’s ambitious project to provide 3.4 million housing units by 2014. The layout of the mass produced units that have already been reproduced broadly throughout the country, the sparsely equipped rows of newly built homes placed in repetitive patterns, migrating families moving into their 35-50sqm houses or walk-up apartments—the whole scenery of these mono-functional commuter settlements evokes a sense of déja-vu. Like the transformation of the initial layout of Cidade de Deus from the 1960s, which was investigated in the previous publication, informalization already started right after the construction of many of the newly erected MCMV settlements was completed. Will history be repeated, leading again to the proliferation of suburban ghettos, multiplied more than one hundred times? Or is it now up to the inhabitants to turn these monotonous environments into popular neighborhoods, into sustainable livelihoods that are integrated in the overall urban system?

 

Whether we believe in the transformative potential of self-built or self-organized neighborhoods or not—the stereotypical implementation of the MCMV settlements obviously needs more consideration regarding urban planning and architectural design. After the government’s remarkable achievement of providing access to housing, it would be most urgent to provide access to the city, which doesn’t only serve to guarantee civil rights and the equal distribution of public means–it also intends to address all issues that make up the city, that offer physical, economic and social structures for a local community to create its proper environment, enabling an adequate livelihood that can be adapted according to collective needs and changing desires.[2]

 

But which urban models should then be followed? What is the vocabulary and grammar necessary to build sustainable cities from scratch? What is more, how can we achieve with little means urban quality and provide an adequate living environment for the lowest income groups of society?

 

Instead of coming up with preset models, the MAS Urban Design of the ETH Zurich started a research project on Brazilian popular architecture as an investigation of everyday spaces in Brazilian cities. With the eyes of an outsider to the investigated culture, building elements, street activities, construction methods, floor plans, public furniture and other components were collected that seemed to contribute fundamentally to the richness, vitality and creativity of Brazilian spaces. Edited and assembled as an open catalogue that can be further expanded upon, the prototypical elements are presented in an associative manner, going beyond predefined priorities and categorizations.

 

In reference to the seminal book A Pattern Language (Portuguese version: Uma linguagem de Padrões), published in 1976 and written by Christopher Alexander, the collection of Brazilian popular architecture includes ingenious solutions from the favelas, as well as building forms from established architectural codes, as found in traditional and modernist typologies.

 

Like its canonical predecessor, APB can be seen as generative grammar, which opposes abstract formal design methods, favoring empirically acquired knowledge based on observation and experimentation, and promoting a radical belief in a timeless way of building, grounded on centuries of trial. Reflecting a deep interest in the modalities of everyday practice, the catalogue offers tools that can be applied in the production of urban environments, providing all the qualities needed to enable Brazilian popular cultures and to reinvent them at the same time. According to Alexander, „It’s not simply beauty of form or just the fitness to a purpose. It includes ordinary intimate qualities, that are rich just because they are related to our lives.“[3]

 

But there is also another reference from the Brazilian context that served as a source of inspiration for this volume: the initials APB indicate an obvious proximity to M.P.B., Música Popular Brasileira. Understood as a crossover artistic movement that brings different classes, ethnicities and cultures together, APB aims to stimulate a broadened view of architectural practice, through which local identities and urban cultures are formed out of hybrid constellations between old and new, formal and informal, between built structures and the experience of everyday life.

 

The book is organized in three parts that can be looked at independently and that are interrelated at the same time. Serving as an introduction to the scope and the operational mode of the MCMV program, the first part can be seen as the thesis that is later countered by the APB catalogue, which constitutes an anti-thesis. While the MCMV intro part looks at the existing stereotypical set-up, the APB collection informs us about all the aspects of popular Brazilian neighborhoods that are not taken into consideration by the program. Finally, in the third part, the two issues—the present mode of production and the APB catalogue—are applied in four different locations, leading to a synthesis in the form of project proposals. The concepts and ideas that have been developed for these sites derive from a charter of claims that represent an alternative vision to the current approach to mass housing in Brazil.

 

Through the selection of four exemplary sites in diverse urban or rural contexts (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, Parauapebas), different conditions have been investigated, ultimately leading to different proposals. While some of the schemes reflect the situation in the periphery of the city or within the condition of an urban edge, others develop strategies of how to conceive of these settlements as „new centralities,“ as „sustainable satellite towns,“ or as inclusive neighborhoods in close relationship to existing urban centers.

 

Ranging from large-scale frameworks for the distribution of land and the organization of urban territory as a whole to concrete proposals for the improvement of the existing schemes, the projected scenarios oscillate between speculative visions and realistic tools and strategies. In the appendix to the project part, these tools and strategies are shown, extracted from the specific contexts as guidelines for the improvement of the MCMV program. By transforming the genetic code of the existing MCMV developments, the present proposals aim to stimulate a productive discussion on the future of popular housing in Brazil.

 

Through hybridized models ranging from specific to generic, combining the APB research on popular architecture with ideas for how to improve the federal housing program, ‚Minha Casa—Nossa Cidade‘ is activating the knowledge of production logistics, official planning methods, administrative procedures and economic calculation—with everything that is necessary (and often excluded) in order to turn the everyday environment into a city—into a place that is inclusive and desired by all of its inhabitants.

 

The uprisings that are taking place throughout the country might facilitate the realization that the language for the formulation of this new urban reality is actually formed in the spaces that the city can offer for collective action—in the streets that create „the jargon that will become the standard legacy of the lexicons of tomorrow“.

[1]           João do Rio, A alma encantadora das ruas / The enchanting soul of the streets, trans. Mark Carlyon (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Cidade Viva, 2010).

 

[2]                Referring to the urban sociologist Robert Park, David Harvey defines the right to the city as “a right to change and reinvent the city more after our hearts‘ desire.” See: David Harvey. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (London: Verso Books, 2013), 4.

[3]                Christopher Alexander, Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).