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Creative Curitiba - the urban design of Curitiba, Brazil

Architectural Review, The, May, 1999 by Lucien Kroll

Curitiba in Brazil is one of the most remarkable cities anywhere. Led by an architect mayor, the citizens have created a series of interlocking systems of transport, land use and waste disposal that makes Curitiba the ecological capital of the world. Lucien Kroll, the distinguished Belgian architect, describes the achievements.

Three-quarters of the 150 million inhabitants of Brazil live in towns, under notorious conditions. But one town, Curitiba, is an exception. Situated 700km south of Rio and 100km from the Atlantic coast, it is the capital of the State of Parana and contains 1 600 000 curitibanos, descendants of Polish, Italian, German and Ukrainian emigrants, and has an economy (services, trade and industry) at the normal level for Brazil. Its natural situation is poor and its climate is average. Like other states, Parana was invaded by a mass of peasants expelled by mechanized agriculture (1.5 million poor peasants were thrown out of work).

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Nothing would distinguish Curitiba from another town if it were not for the action of its mayor, Jaime Lerner, an architect. He has made all the difference. He quickly understood that a town is designed not by an architect but by politics. So he contrived to be elected mayor for three alternate terms in 20 years and is ceaselessly improving the urban ecology of Curitiba.

He realized that grandiose solutions never produce the promised results and that abstract Modernism simply does not work. In 1970, when he first became mayor, the new town of Brasilia was shining in all its glory. Today it is a sorry sight, strange and uninhabitable. Lerner realized that all this hardware of glass and steel towers, these underground stations, these dizzy suspension bridges and motorways did not really help anyone in their everyday life.

Masterplans

In the '60s, an attempt was made to impose a 1942 plan by the French town-planner Agache. He proposed widening the road system, demolishing the borders of avenues and radially transforming the city on behalf of the private car. Just like North-American towns.

This plan was rejected by architects, engineers and by the Development Bank, who requested study of a new and more realistic proposal. As early as 1966, a new plan was prepared by the Lerner team and was accepted, then frozen in '71 under the harsh dictatorship. This latter plan closed the main road to private traffic, which annoyed some private interests. The earlier plan was concentric: to go from one district to another, traffic, both public and private, had to pass through the centre, which would certainly soon become choked. Therefore the streets had to be widened and the spiral of demolition and bottlenecks began.

The new plan was linear: the town was authorized to spread only along specified lines. The historical centre, situated somewhat apart, could then become quietly pedestrianized. A ring-road connected the fast north-south and east-west bus routes, Four concentric lines were added with stations at intersections with the earlier lines.

These express radial routes would have needed a width of 60m, which was impossible. The device adopted in the plan was to divide this flow intelligently between three neighbouring parallel streets, the first and the third being one-way for private travel and the centre being reserved for the express bus, and later for the tram or surface railway when the means were available. All this was co-ordinated with very little expropriation. The routes gave a structure to development without allowing it to occur anywhere at random and without impossible traffic conditions.

Parks

The first act of the local administration had been to look after the parks and to plant many trees. The inhabitants had to be persuaded by mobilizing them with a slogan: 'We bring shade, you bring fresh water' (an old Portuguese proverb). Previously the town had planted 5000 trees per year, and this was increased to 60 000 trees per year. In 20 years, Curitiba has increased the green space per inhabitant from 0.5[m.sup.2] to 52 [m.sup.2]. The intention was to plant one and a half million trees in 20 years for, since the 1988 murder of Chico Mendes (the campaigner to save the rainforest), Brazil had been on the defensive in ecological circles.

During a winter night in '72 the work of pedestrianizing the main street began in the greatest secrecy and was completed in 72 hours. In spite of the desire for participation, the preliminary work had been carried out without publicity. The wager succeeded. Participation was not by the inhabitants but rather by urban guerrillas. The car addicts had decided to reconquer the territory by brute force, but on Monday morning when the lorries arrived to demolish everything, they were faced with a group of children painting paper on the ground. This was the first successful municipal sit-in for protecting pedestrians. Even so, it took two years more to set the express buses in operation, an essential accompaniment to the pedestrian.

Creative Curitiba - the urban design of Curitiba, Brazil

Architectural Review, The, May, 1999 by Lucien Kroll

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