“The transformations that the planet is currently undergoing, all over the world and all their manifestations of life and habitats, including the constructions carried out for the most diverse human activities, pose dilemmas and questions. Faced with a global pandemic, it is natural that we, architects, and other actors linked to the design of spaces, ask ourselves: what will be the future of architecture and the city? What do we have to change to adapt to the need for new standards of design and execution of architectural works, public spaces, and interventions, among others, in the works of modern architecture? When considering architecture as an action in which different levels of human action are integrated in the world, it is imperative that these levels open up to the perspectives that currently impact the living conditions of people. In this direction, it is necessary to recover the pertinent digressions of the various promoters and thinkers of the Modern Movement.
In this sense, Docomomo 2021 will be headquartered in Belém do Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon region, a territory that has been impacted by various aggressions to its physical environment and its populations, such as deforestation, fires and electrical blackouts, and ineffective or non-existent to recurring social problems such as housing and its infrastructure, challenges us to think of responses to a present in which environment and humanity are at serious risk of irreversible destruction. These questions demand urgent answers to qualify the space of cities and their built environment, including a repudiation of the erasure of history and local memory.
It is also worth pointing out the diversity of modern architecture in a continental country like Brazil, which presents a heterogeneous and rich panorama, but still of little visibility, especially in regions where the production of this architecture took place for reasons beyond the causality of industrialization and progressivism, but which was the result of complex plots that make up the local reality. Thus, it is necessary in a nationwide event, to listen to other voices that enable us to have a more inclusive and richer panorama.
Considering the issues means revisiting the architecture of the Modern Movement from a perspective that includes different views on it and its foundations. New possibilities of thinking about the present and the future of this architecture, and formulating new ideas based on the experiences of the modern movement and its legacy, requires recovering conceptions that are in accordance with the needs presented by society today. This leads us to reflect on the (new) uses of buildings in modern architecture. Interventions are constantly observed that almost always alter the original lines of these works, affecting their heritage value and erasing their memory and history. The transformation of heritage in the course of history that adapt to new uses and social expectations is undeniable, however, it is essential to pay attention to the processes that contribute to its valuation or to the negation of its modern conception.”
The full program can be seen here.
More details at the event website and the Docomomo Brazil website [Portuguese].
