O Plano Diretor do Rio de Janeiro e a proteção da paisagem como estratégia legal de ocultamento das massas: um estudo da efetividade das normas sobre paisagem

Abstract

The present study is based on the landscape theory of the geographer Augustin Berque, but applied to an unfair urban planning of Rio de Janeiro, which dates back at least the beginning of the 20th century. One of Berque's maxims is that “the more we think about the landscape, the more we massacre it”. Thus, it is hypothesized that the Master Plan of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, responsible for consecrating the landscape as “the most valuable asset of the municipality” (art. 2º, §4º) and which mentions it approximately five times more than the predecessor Master Plan, it is one of the consequences of what Berque defines as “landscape thinking” (“pensée du páysage”). In other words, that a legal interpretation of the landscape disassociated from its profound sense, aligned with the interests of modernity and strictly linked to the needs of its tourist consumption as an object, contributes not to its protection, but as a stimulus to its massacre. As a hypothesis test, the study tests the effectiveness of the three provisions of the Master Plan concerning the protection of the urban landscape, in addition to the effectiveness of the seven complementary municipal laws that mention the radical “paisag” between 2011 and 2021. The reason to study this specific period is that the Estatuto da Cidade (Federal Law 10.257/2001) considers ten years to be the minimum for the revision of a Master Plan in Brazil – and the present Master Plan was stablished in 2011. It is concluded that the effectiveness of the provisions of the Rio de Janeiro’s Master Plan on urban landscape was minimal and that the effectiveness of complementary municipal laws that mention the radical "paisag" is directly proportional to how "noble" are the regions to which such laws apply. It also proposes the need for the Brazilian Law to invest in a greater awareness of society about the landscape, along the guidelines of the European Convention on Landscape and the “Direito de Paisagem”, an autonomous area of Law suggested by Maraluce Custódio in which the landscape is fundamentally associated with the ethic need to live well.