Patrimonialização e desenvolvimento : conexões e contradições em Brasília

Brasilia imposes itself as an interesting study case. Being the uttermost expression of the modernist architecture and urbanism, the city was planned to synthesize both a national development project and the symbol of an intended national course change in political, economic, geographic, strategic and especially social terms. Its uniqueness, along with the symbolism surrounding its design and construction, may be one of the reasons why it was born already shielded by law and also why the protection was institutionalized in three scales, in the course of only three decades: on the international level, through its inscription on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List (1987); at district level, through the Decree 10,829 (1987) and on the federal level, through Ordinance No. 04 (1990), later transformed into the Ordinance 314 of IPHAN (1992). Inevitably inserted into the postmodern logic of increasing commercialization of cities, places and cultural/natural heritages, Brasilia expanded itself from Lucio Costa’s plan in a quick and disorderly manner, which resulted in the existence of multiple cores and in its fragmentation political, physical and imaginary. Given this scenario, the extent to which the universal values attributed to Brasilia, through its heritagization translate into local benefits for the urban society was questioned. Through the theoretical analysis of three core categories heritage, development and the city and through the empirical analysis of its heritagization process the connections and the contradictions established between the city's heritagization and its development where unveiled, emphasizing that such connections and contradictions reinforce each other or cancel each other in the confrontation between discourse and everyday life, theory and practice. There are numerous connection possibilities between heritage and development, but the synergy between these two processes, to be virtuous and positive, depends on a catalyst that we call political force.