Memory and history of school architecture during the first republic in Belém-PA

Abstract

This work approaches school architecture from the perspective of memory and the history of education and refers to the buildings of school groups in Belém that originated in the First Republic of Pará. In that period, the school space became a symbol and object of construction of the new regime and materialized as ideas and educational policies of the republicans, being an important source, full of information about the society of the time. Our objective is to analyze the architectural characteristics of these buildings from documentary research based on a theoretical framework in Nora (1997), Coelho (2008), Bogéa (2009), and Lobato (2014 and Bôas) (2015). In the methodological scope, we developed demos in addition to studies on the buildings survey and literature review, or that portrayed the discussion of the concepts of memory and primary period, then we did the primary research partial analysis. Visits to recording and analysis institutions will also be presented as preserved architectural features. The school buildings under study materialized positivism and hygienist in architectural features and had the predominant aesthetic of eclectic style, with emphasis on neoclassicism and art nouveau, to praise Public Instruction as a condition for civility. As for the preservation of the buildings, only the buildings of the Barão do Rio Branco Floriano Peixoto school groups maintain the restoration of the original characteristics of their construction. The school groups José Veríssimo, Rui Barbosa, Wenceslau Braz, and Benjamin Constant received several renovations that completely modified the facade and lost the meanings subliminally imbued by the republicans and, consequently, part of the memory and history of education was lost with the de-characterization of architecture.