Beira, uma paisagem modernista na África Tropical

Abstract

ResumoA Cidade da Beira, é um estudo de caso complexo e ímpar no que se refere à implementação das ideias modernistas em países tropicais. A cidade tornou-se próspera em virtude dos elevados rendimentos providenciados pela sua interface ferro-portuário que a ligava à Rodésia/Zimbabwe e constituía a base da sua riqueza, atraindo jovens ambiciosos e talentosos arquitectos e engenheiros civis portugueses que construíram uma urbe paradoxal, repleta de edifícios modernistas emblemáticos, plenos de complexas e pouco ortodoxas soluções técnicas que preenchem um plano urbanístico único na África colonial portuguesa. Este artigo discute o processo de expansão da cidade assente numa matriz modernista, profundamente influenciado pelo imaginário arquitectónico e urbano brasileiro procurando sublinhar a inscrição da influência modernista na lógica de expansão da cidade como opção técnica e política. Paralelamente discute a importância da circulação das ideias e modelos urbanos e arquitectónicos no meio dos arquitectos e engenheiros civis portugueses radicados em Moçambique. Metodologicamente os autores procederam a um trabalho de campo assente no reconhecimento da matriz da cidade e na identificação do legado arquitectónico modernista de influência brasileira, seleccionando de entre o edificado os exemplos mais emblemáticos. Palavras

Re-forming resource entrepôts: Urban investment, extraction, and Beira’s Grande and Golden Peacock Hotels

“…The colony’s largest concession, the Mozambique Company, was primarily British-funded, and administered the colony’s center (Fernandes et al., 2015; Newitt, 1995). In 1892, the Company established its headquarters in Beira and invested in its urban planning and infrastructure (Fernandes et al., 2015; Newitt, 1995).…”

“…The hotels’ modernist aesthetics were also significant. Serving Rhodesian visitors, the hotels sought to convey control, in pleasing ways to especially inland settlers, and produce a European utopian fantasy that masked the forced labor, physical violence, and socio-spatial attempts at domination central to the colonial project (Fernandes et al., 2015; Sarmento and Linehan, 2019). The hotels contributed to Beira’s signification as a site of white settler pleasure and relaxation, and manifestation and obfuscation of colonial dispossession and violence.…”

“…The colony’s largest concession, the Mozambique Company, was primarily British-funded, and administered the colony’s center (Fernandes et al., 2015; Newitt, 1995). In 1892, the Company established its headquarters in Beira and invested in its urban planning and infrastructure (Fernandes et al., 2015; Newitt, 1995). With its port, Beira became the economic entrepôt for the Company and for the Rhodesias, Nyasaland, and their capitals: by 1948, nearly all of Beira’s port traffic originated in Salisbury (now Harare) (Kagan-Guthrie, 2014).…”

Luso-Brazilian geographies? The making of epistemic communities in semi-peripheral academic human geography

“…Besides these direct collaborations, a series of new open-access geography journals in Brazil and Portugal have become important platforms of dialogue. Several Portuguese geographers have published their research in new open-access Brazilian journals such as human geography journals GeoUERJ (Borges et al, Barreira and Costa, 2017; Cunha et al, 2017; Malta et al, 2017; Parreira et al, 2017) and GeoUSP (Gaspar, 2015; Madeira and Vale, 2015; Freitas and Queirós, 2018; Gonçalves, 2018), planning journal Urbe: Revista Brasileira de Gestão Urbana (Fernandes et al, 2016; Cordeiro et al, 2017; Gonçalves, 2017; Fernandes et al, 2018), social geography journal Movimentos Sociais e Dinâmicas Espaciais (Mendes, 2015, 2016; Gabriel, 2017; Silva and Malheiros, 2017a, 2017b), or the urban geography journal Revista Cidades (Fernandes, 2006, 2012; Barata-Salgueiro, 2014; Cachinho, 2014). The same has taken place in Portuguese open-access geography journals in which several Brazilian geographers have published their works, such as Finisterra (Penna, 2012; Bernardino, 2015; Góes, 2016; Limberger and Tulla, 2017; Mello-Théry, 2018) and Geografia e Ordenamento do Território (Ortigoza, 2014; Ribeiro and Vieira, 2014; Vasconcelos, 2016b; Arruda, 2017; Ribeiro, 2018).…”

Proposal for a Methodology for Sustainable Rehabilitation Strategies of the Existing Building Stock—The Ponte Gêa Neighborhood

“…The city became prosperous due to the high yields provided by its railroad-port interface. This constituted the basis of its wealth, which attracted ambitious young and talented Portuguese architects and civil engineers who built a paradoxical city and technical solutions that fill a unique urban plan in Portuguese colonial Africa [3].…”