Tempos e atravessamentos: tramando linhas a partir do Centro Carioca de Design

Abstract

This thesis makes a correlation between the trajectory of Centro Carioca de Design (CCD) and the very act of writing a thesis. If the starting point was the CCD, created through an official Act published by the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro in November 2009, within the Municipal Secretariat of Culture (SMC), through its Undersecretariat for Cultural Heritage, Urban Intervention, Architecture and Design (SUBPC), later, understanding that the thesis constitutes, in itself, an “object”, I tried to relate the narratives in order to organize the thesis alternating between “Times” and “Crossings”. Thus, the five “Times” are: (1) For a crossed knowledge, where I present the thesis and its organization; (2) Design as House, where I present aspects of the house where the CCD is located and its surroundings in the city of Rio, in addition to drawings, fabulations and images that bring those who read the thesis closer to the elements presented; (3) Design as discourse, where I do an exercise in discourse analysis, trying to understand what the words “design”, “cultural heritage”, “strategy” and “policy” meant, depending on who said them; (4) Design as culture, where I present the context of the insertion of Design as a public policy in the Ministry of Culture (MinC) during the first two terms of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil, with Gilberto Gil (2003-2008) and Juca Ferreira (2008-2010) as ministers; and (5) Tentacle-making, where I promote a debate about what would be “the truth” (or even what would be “the truths”) possible in a thesis, and what are the implications of seeking an absolute “truth”. The Crossings, in turn, present articles published throughout the doctoral period, showing an evolution not only on thinking about design, cultural heritage, politics and the city, but also on the understanding that everything that is produced in the context of a doctorate is, necessarily, constitutive of the thesis. Thus, I organized the Crossings into (1) First, in which I present the proposal of “tentacular time” and the history of the implementation of the CCD in Praça Tiradentes, in Rio de Janeiro; (2) Second, a written and visual essay about the streets of Rio de Janeiro and its memories; (3) Third, completely throughout the year 2020, at the peak of the isolation period due to the Covid-19 pandemic, presenting two articles on events of that period, one questioning the role of architecture in relation to the sustainability discourse after a meeting between a Danish “starchitect” with the president of Brazil in 2020, and another making a critique in order to understand who are the bodies that really die, in the world, in the light of “Black Lives Matter” movements; and finally (4) Fourth, in which I propose different perspectives on cultural heritage, especially heritage monuments and their disposition as a representation of power in the “public spaces” of cities. The thesis is, therefore, a heterogeneous document, constituting a promenade through the political history of design, cultural heritage, and of the CCD, but also a route map for the thesis, which becomes itself a research material.