Notebooks with drawings and notes of professor José Cláudio Gomes

Diamantina as object of study

Abstract

This text addresses the work of Professor José Cláudio Gomes in notebooks with drawings and notes, which are the object of research at Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo, in search of his vision of the shape of the city and the architects’ drawings. Architect José Cláudio Gomes was a professor at Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo for 30 years, at the School of Architecture and Urbanism, at Urbanismo da Universidade Estadual Paulista in Bauru, and at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade de São Paulo, in São Carlos, where he was the first coordinator of the Architecture and Urbanism course. His 1973 doctoral thesis entitled “Contribution to the Project of the Brazilian City” makes an important contribution to the study of the landscape of São Paulo,
its occupation, and future prospects, opening an approach to the natural landscape as basis for the project when it was not very much studied in urbanism. He made important heritage preservation analyses, including an insight into the natural landscape. The last years of his work were devoted to the study of the city of Diamantina, influenced by the studies of Lúcio Costa, whom he considered “his master”, and supported by the methods of the Saverio Muratori school of urban morphology, but with his perspective of the theoretical issues. We should underscore that Professor José Cláudio Gomes has not published any book despite having trained generations of architects and collaborated with countless Brazilian schools of architecture to implement the urbanism course. The
article aims to show how José Cláudio Gomes’ personal records could reveal an ongoing research in several aspects and different approaches, from the very drawing to the historical record and theoretical reflection.