C2PC: Ensaio projetual sobre um centro comunitário de cultura contemporânea no Centro Histórico de João Pessoa

Abstract

The composing layers of our reality are increasingly intertwining and complexifying. The virtual merges with the material reality creating hybrid environments. The growing data cloud and information avalanche obstruct the visualization of different possibilities for the future, turning it unimaginable and distancing us from the collective dreaming. Faced with the emergence of a climate crisis and impoverishment of natural resources, the viability of community action was replaced in our imaginary by escapist solutions submitted to the interest of hegemonic powers preserved by segregation and scarcity economies, diametrically opposing to the solutions based on the preservation of multiplicities of terrestrial life. Technology in its material or mediatic form has been increasingly influencing the formation of relationships, subjectivities and politics in cities, therefore, ignoring reflections on a critical appropriation submits such formations to the interests of a globalization centered on the Global North. In the tangled political networks of this complex reality, the architect must reposition his performance in an “extended field of architecture”, that is, explore his analytical capacities by including other disciplines such as art, technology and sociology so that architecture can contribute to face social, political and cultural challenges. From the perspective of a critical theory of global problematics, the dynamics of João Pessoa’s networks of influence were analyzed on a local scale. Excluding practices are recognized in the distribution of public cultural facilities in the city. Submitted to the interest of a tourist market, it is associated with choices of places with low accessibility, widespread development and processes involving the expulsion of local communities. The Historic Center, in addition to concentrating a symbolic importance, presents cultural manifestations that occupy open public spaces; it is in these spaces that raises the awareness of the collective action’s capabilities in the revolution of everyday life. Culture as an instrument in the fight for the right to the city motivates this design essay seeking the space that catalyzes the production of new utopias, a community cultural facility in the historic Center of João Pessoa.