Fachadas fantasmas: os espectros da arquitetura eclética na cidade de João Pessoa

Abstract

The architecture of the past endures in the urban landscape as a spectre, neglected in the collective historical consciousness. These buildings, as historical witnesses, manifest as phantom façades -vestiges of continuities and ruptures that haunt the city. This research investigates eclecticism in the architecture of João Pessoa, capitalof Paraíba, from the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century. In this period of urban modernization, this architectural language, based on compositionalfreedom and stylistic polyphony, materialized the republican ideology, encompassing more than a thousand identified examples. Despite its relevance, local eclecticism receives only briefand superficial mentions in the literature, being recurrentlyglimpsed through a single analytical lens. In addition to the scarcity of documents, there is a visible process of neglect that jeopardizes the physical integrity of this built heritage.This dissertation's primary objective is to conduct a historical-morphological reading of this eclecticism. The study focuses specifically on buildings situated within and adjacent to the city's original nucleus during the aforementioned research time frame. By (re)constructing the formal trajectory of this language, it aims to (re)examine its reception and varied forms of representation in the city. To that end, this dissertation records a 'living heritage'-consisting of 914 examples-and reconstitutes a 'dead heritage'-with 246-, totalling a sample of 1160 buildings. Mapping this language helped decode its urban dispersion as well as understand its nexus to urban dynamics. Analytical attributes were applied to systematize the examples according to morphological parameters, with an emphasis on surfaces and volumes. This analytical effort contributed to evaluate the local eclectic architectural practice in lightof the historicalfactors that conditioned its manifestation, reception, and diffusion. Results indicate that eclecticism was mostly spread through the oldest areas and extended significantly through the expansion sectors, where it assumed a structuring role. Morphologically, it was found that the language is expressed in three distinct phases. In the first phase, continuities with the colonial and imperial modus aedificandi are revealed, frequently manifesting as 'makeup'applied over preexisting buildings in the initial nucleus. In the second phase, the language acquires systemic contours driven by the economic prosperity of the cotton trade; it spreads through the expansion sectors of the city, diffuses among higher social strata, and experiences greater constructive freedom with the introduction of frontal lot setbacks. A more assertive historicist rupture with the colonial tradition is then consolidated, enabling formal experimentations that consummate the modernizing project. In the third phase, a conceptual departure from eclectic canons occurs, incorporating a tendency toward ornamental depuration that would anticipate modernism. It is concluded that eclecticism manifests itself in João Pessoa as an expanded field of compositional freedom, marked by personalized interpretations of consecrated repertoires that confer visual appeal to buildings and endow the city with an inventive practice aligned with the modernizing desires of republican society.