SANTANA, THE FIRST SKYSCRAPER IN CAMPINAS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24220/2318-0919v0n13a139Keywords:
Modernist architecture, Skyscraper, Art-déco, Plano de Melhoramentos Urbanos of CampinasAbstract
This article discusses the construction of the modernist building called Santana, in
1936, located in Campinas, 100 km from São Paulo, Brazil. The six-story building
became a modern icon, publicly heralded as the first skyscraper in the city. Its construction
opened the modernization process in the city’s urban space which had already started
with the implementation of a plan drawn up by an urbanist, Prestes Maia, hired by
the city hall, in 1934. The building was both designed and built by the civil engineer Lix
da Cunha, who graduated in 1919 from Rose Polytechnic Institute of Terre-Haute,
Indiana, USA and who was responsible for one of the most respectable engineering
offices in town. The building, an example of clean architecture, without any ornamentals,
projected with a new concrete building system and dedicated exclusively to commercial
use, established both a physical and a symbolic landmark in the transformation
process which the city was undergoing. The city, which had been the main economic
center of the country between the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the
20th, was the largest coffee exporter at the time, and having survived the 1929 crash,
started the industrialization process which completely altered the physical appearance
of the city. The image of progress as well as modernity, which the city was trying to transmit, was undoubtedly linked to the architecture of the Santana building. Having the building as a commercial address showed a status of modernity at the time.
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References
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