Prototypes of Urbanism: Urban Movements Occupying Central São Paulo
Abstract
Myriad members of urban movements are occupying vacant urban spaces in central São Paulo. This article explores whether and how particular prototypes of urbanism are germinating from such reclamations of vacant architecture. If urbanism is understood as a deliberate intervention in the material urban environment as a means of ameliorating mankind’s artificial living environment, how then are urban movements prefiguring alternative ways of going about this? In other words, how does the intermittent inhabiting of such occupations take part in reconceptualizing and remaking the city? And what prototypical model of urbanism does this bring in its wake? First, São Paulo will be discussed as an arrival city, where migration, urbanization and urban movement synchronously emerged. Second, the center’s vacancy will be examined as a distinct spatial condition that, together with increasing migratory arrival, set the stage for urban occupation movements to squat downtown buildings. Third, particular contemporary occupation practices in the central city will be highlighted, exploring how multiple occupation movements carve out spaces of cohabitation in the center’s vacant architecture. Finally, conclusions will be drawn on how such occupations might figure as prototypes of an alternative mode of city making. The parallel photo-essay seeks to shed light on the architectural and proto-urbanistic realm of occupations. The research underpinning this text stems from a close collaboration with multiple social movements, cultural collectives, human rights associations and governmental and academic institutions in São Paulo. Approximately two years of participant-observation were spent in occupations, and multiple workshops, debates and exhibitions were organized in occupations over the course of varied fieldwork periods.
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