Imagens da cidade: representação e modernização na cidade do Rio Grande na década de 1950.

Abstract

This work covers the decade of 1950s, more specifically, Juscelino Kubistchek presidential administration period, from 1956 to 1961. This period is marked by many changes: modernization was in effect, perpetuated by urban transformations and its recurrent issues such as development and industrial transformations. The Plano de Metas, released shortly after the president inauguration, consisted of 31 targets, and tended to give development bases to Brazil. Among them were the expansion of energy, food, basic industry and transportation within all the country, inland included. Also encompassed the main goal, the construction of a new capital, Brasília. Based on this, the following question can be made: Whether and how the modernization reached Rio Grande from Rio Grande newspaper’s images, considered the largest in circulation, and from the Studio Casa Foto Rio Grande. Also the representation of the new urban view will be studied within the stipulated period. The sources for this research were the Photo Reports journal and photos from Rio Grande Home Photo Studio. The goals that guided this work were to understand how the urban view expressed thus modernization and urbanization in the city of Rio Grande, to identify urban changes in the city of Rio Grande in the 1950s, its infrastructure, beautification and the problems stemming from its possible modernization. Thus, it was found that - while the sources primarily aimed to show the beautiful, arising reforms, the old and outdated where also spotted by the photography studio. It was noted, then, that in Rio Grande the old and new were part of the modern city’s constitution. Also it was noted that modernization discourses were not simply virtues, but power arrangements whether of governments or its population. Since the people, through the newspaper and/or photos from the Studio, felt integrating this ideal and active participants within, whereas in industrialization, citizens/residents, governments and urbanization are interrelated and dependent on the process.