Jan 31st

Urban fabric (foolproof definition):

Jan 28th

For those who do not yet know about the purpose of my stay in São Paulo, I’ll give a brief summary today. I am conducting research for my master’s thesis in urban studies which is mainly about the notion of the right to the city and the contentious relationship between federal law, local government and social movements. More precisely, the point of departure is the so-called “Estatuto da Cidade” (city statute), which was adopted as a part of Brazilian federal law in 2001 and which includes several key notions of the “right to the city”, a concept developed by Henri Lefebvre and popularized by David Harvey. In short, the Estatuto envisages more democratic and participative patterns of urban development and, maybe most importantly, it underlines the social function of urban property. This aspect clearly reverberates with the contrastation of use value and exchange value of urban space which is a crucial topos of all those who invoke the “right to the city” nowadays – and who, obviously, argue that priority has to be given to the demands and necessities of those who actually live in the city instead of the profit interests of private investors.

While urban reality hardly ever fits entirely into this over-simplified description, São Paulo is certainly a place where some negative consequences of real estate speculation surface in a particularly striking manner. The huge number of empty buildings in the city’s central districts (mostly in Sé and República) and the distressing amount of homeless people who roam the very same neighborhoods is, arguably, the most obvious indicator that something is not working well here. But also in Consolação, which is where I live, the impact of the real estate boom is palpable: the apartment I share with Fabio has more than doubled its price during the last three years and allover the neighborhood, two- or three-story houses from the first half of the 20th century are replaced by apartment towers similar to ours. Rua Augusta used to be a rather decrepit red-light district ten years ago, nowadays it is crammed with trendy bars and night clubs charging entrance fees between 20 and 50 R$. Those who are not able to cope with the skyrocketing prices for housing, alimentation and leisure are forced to move somewhere else. Meanwhile, favelas in central areas fall victim to rather ominous cases of “spontaneous combustion”. Whereas, again, it would be over-simplified to shuffle all these cases together and to explain them by one single factor – the “neoliberal” reconfiguration of urban space, most prominently -, a perspective contrasting use value and exchange value still serves to put them into relation, to politicize them and thus to spark a broader debate about more desirable patterns of urban development.

Thus, the “right to the city” as it appeared (not only) in academic debates during the past decades has predominantly political implications, insofar as it does not necessarily envisage an actual legal implementation, but rather serves as a claim, a slogan which potentially unifies and transcends insulated struggles in the urban context. What’s peculiar about Brazil is that, as mentioned before, key notions of the “right to the city” (which, in São Paulo, mostly translates into the right to housing) have been adopted in the federal constitution, thus establishing a new legal point of reference. The “Estatuto da Cidade” actually provides municipal governments with far-reaching competences to implement more equitable patterns of urban development – for instance, landlords can be forced to sell their houses if they let them stay vacant for speculative reasons. However, the Estatuto’s implementation depends strongly on the political will of the respective municipal governments, which frequently do not live up to the expectations of those in need of (better) housing. At the same time, the sheer existence of the Estatuto as a constitutional principle provides São Paulo’s housing movements with a whole new resource to confer legitimacy upon their political struggle – as can be witnessed in Evaldo Mocarzel’s documentary “À Margem do Concreto”: at 2.04, the woman in the interview affirms that the (illegal) occupations carried out by the movements are, after all, a way to realize the promises of the “Estatuto da Cidade” – in other words, to enact the law.

My research interest consists in finding out more about this ambivalent relationship between “legal” and “political” aspects, whereas I do not use these terms in an essentialist and/or mutually exclusive manner (which is why I put them in quotation marks). My assumption, however, is that the Estatuto da Cidade has had thorough impacts upon both “realms”, the institutional configuration of Brazil’s legal system as well as the symbolic sphere of political claim-making. My aim is to “scale down” this double implication to a sample of concrete actors – the so-called “cause lawyers” who, at the same time, are members of the housing movements and represent them in legal cases. The basic idea is that these “cause lawyers” might be crucial actors because of their ability to “translate” between predominantly “legal” and “political” discourses, thus turning the Estatuto into an effective means of political mobilization. On the other hand, I am also interested in the actual strategies these lawyers apply in court in order to promote the movements’ causes. Finally, I want to find out about their biographical, professional and political background, given the fact that most Brazilian law schools are characterized by an individualist, positivist and formalist approach which is not overly prone to generate explicitly political self-conceptions amongst its graduates. Methodologically, my plan is to rely mostly on semi-structured interviews in addition to a bunch of literature covering, by and large, three major fields: “cause lawyering” as a particular legal/political practice bearing specific chances and pitfalls for the lawyers as well as the movements they represent; the “Estatuto da Cidade” as an unprecedented legal tool to implement more equitable patterns of urban development; and the peculiar context of São Paulo, especially in terms of its long-standing history of housing movements.

In May, I have to submit a thesis of 100 pages and I guess I would be pretty lost with this task if I was all on my own – however, I was lucky and got to know a bunch of people recently who are working for the CEBRAP. They are part of an interdisciplinary cluster called “Direito e Democracia” (Right and Democracy) and are currently conducting research for the Brazilian ministry of justice – on a subject which bears many similarities with my own project. I may use their resources – which mostly means profiting from the prior knowledge as well as the social network they have been building up during the past few months – and they also invited me to join them for the interviews they conduct. I did so twice already, last Thursday in the PUC’s junior law office, today in the USP’s. In both cases, law students and recent graduates get hands-on professional experience by representing clients, frequently those who cannot afford a full-fledged lawyer. Consequently, both offices run mostly on the student’s idealism – the money they earn is ridiculously little. Both interviews were very helpful for me, as I could verify some basic assumptions I had developed before coming to São Paulo. During the next weeks, I will join some more interviews in order to get a first overview of what’s going on in the field, then I will start to develop an own catalogue of questions and define a sample. Plus – surprise – it looks like I will have to read quite a lot. Let’s hope the weather stays shitty.

Jan 25th

Those who read my entry from Jan 19th attentively know that, today, it has been exactly 459 years that the city of São Paulo was founded. Therefore, today was public holiday in São Paulo (only the city, not the state) and there was a huge spectacle downtown with various bands playing. Even though I was struggling with a serious hangover, I thus made my way to the Teatro Municipal, where I met Leandro, Amina and Marcelo (the couple from my first entry on Jan 8th). They had brought their children, a girl of about nine years and a boy slightly older than her (I have forgotten their names, shame on me) and I have to say I might have never before met such an adorable family.

Marcelo, who works as an architect, explained me a lot of things about São Paulo’s historical development. He also told me about his own family background – while his father is from the interior of São Paulo state, his mother was born in Bahia and Marcelo was raised in a peripheral and relatively poor neighborhood of São Paulo. However, he went to study at the prestigous Escola da Cidade, considered one of the most innovative schools of architecture and urbanism in Latin America. His lower-middle class background has clearly left its imprint upon his intellectual as well as professional development, as he distrusts any overly brainy take on architecture and favors a more sensous and practically oriented approach instead. He also told me how he used to drive skateboard in the late 1980s and about his adoration for Tony Hawk. Meanwhile, his son was doing kickflips together with the other teens and hobos who had gathered with their boards next to the theater, while his daughter was taking pictures of the whole scenario.

Two cans of Heineken helped me to get rid of my nasty headache and together with some more friends, we walked down to Parque Anhangabaú, a huge square I had visited some days ago when Fabio and Leandro showed me around in the center. Today, it was packed with people, all gathering around the stage where the bands were playing. During the last years, the Aniversários were celebrated in Parque Ibirapuera, surrounded by posh neighborhoods in the south of the city – this year, however, the party was taking place in the center again, possibly a consequence of the PT’s victory in the municipal elections some months ago. In any case, the audience was a bewildering mixture of all kinds of different phenotypes, and watching the multitude was even more fun than watching the show itself. After Criolo (who, evidently, played his most famous song), Racionais MC’s took over, opening with “Capítulo 4 Versículo 3”, an instant classic coverage of periferia misery and police violence. They were celebrated by the crowd, and it is certainly significant that their perspective on the city – coming from the margins spatially as well as socially – got a prime time slot on the Aniversário today. All the more so, since their show on the Virada Cultural in 2007 was interrupted after heavy police repressions, as Fabio told me.

Today, however, everything went peacefully and the only violent incidence I witnessed was the diluvian rain which set in all of a sudden, continued for about half an hour and left the crowd soaking wet. After the show was over, we had burgers at Sujinho and then I went home, tired from the heat, today’s impression overload and Amina’s marihuana. What I can say is that, once again, I am deeply impressed by this city’s diversity and, above all, its sheer power. This place has been incredibly energizing for me lately, and I’m feeling very grateful for it.

[Correction: Racionais MC’s were actually not playing – instead, Criolo and Emicida interpreted some of their most popular songs.]

Jan 23rd

Before I forget it, here are some pictures I took of occupied houses when we visited the city center last weekend. Will write more about the topic in one of my next posts.

Jan 21st

Yesterday, Fabio and I visited his parents in Itupeva, a comparetively small town about 70 kilometers northwest of São Paulo. We got up early and took the bus from the Barra Funda terminal. Driving down the Marginal Tietê and the Rodovia dos Bandeirantes, we made our way through more and more peripheral areas of the metropolis, high-rise buildings gave way to terrace houses and favelas, and after an amazingly short time, we had left the city behind us and were driving through São Paulo’s green and hilly surroundings. Maria, Fabio’s mother, picked us up at the bus station and drove us home, along lots of newly built houses and building shells standing on grounds which had been used for agriculture or were lying fallow until very recently. Indeed, Itupeva has doubled its population from 25,000 to 50,000 habitants during the last ten years and keeps on growing. New enterprises have been settling here, largely due to the good transport connection, so that the whole pattern of regional production has shifted from agriculture to service and industry. Ercilio, Fabio’s father, used to own a lot of land in the area, but he sold most of it recently when the demand for construction increased. When we arrived at their house, he showed me all kinds of discarded agricultural tools – plows, a tractor, even mill stones – he keeps in a shed on the backside of the house. He also has a collection of old telephones, typewriters, sewing machines and the like which shall one day become part of the museum he wants to establish.

After a small snack, we went to celebrate the third birthday of one of Fabio’s relatives. His brothers Rafael and Osmar (the latter was recently elected deputy mayor in Itupeva) were there as well, such as many members of the extended family unknown even to Fabio. The party took place on a huge site comprising various holiday houses, a tennis ground, a swimming pool and a grill lodge, which was where the Churrasco was served. The nice guy on the picture did a good job and I ate quite a lot.

We also had a lot of ice-cold Brahma beer and the sun was burning so that pretty much everyone present ended up in the pool sooner or later to cool down a little. I also tried to play tennis (the third or fourth time in my life) and decided not to try it again – at least not when being drunk and close to a sunstroke already. Instead, I seeked shade, where I had more beer and met more fun people, such as Jefferson, a colleague of Rafael and Osmar, who likes birds.

The next day, we visited Rafael, Osmar and Jefferson in their company, an estate agency they founded together some years ago. Rafael took us for a ride, showing us the some new real estate developments in Itupeva and Jundiaí, a nearby town. It was plain to see that the steep growth – in economic as well as in demographic terms – the area has gone through recently is leaving its imprint on the landscape, as more and more areas are being built upon, with lush gated communities for the upper middle class and shoe-box like estates (some of them behind huge walls as well, interestingly) for the not-so-well-off. In any case, while metropolitan regions such as São Paulo are mostly saturated population-wise, Itupeva and Jundiaí are just two examples of those small and middle-sized cities where urban growth is taking place predominantly in contemporary Brazil. The history of Fabio’s family somewhat epitomizes this very process and some of its major implications: while his forefathers arrived in the late 19th century to work on the fields and acquired more and more farmland successively, Ercilio (Fabio’s father) sold most of it and his sons are now making a living with real estate development. Itupeva’s agricultural past will be on display in Ercilio’s museum henceforth.

Jan 19th

Yesterday afternoon, Fabio and Leandro took me for an extensive walking tour through the city center. We met at the Copan, which must be the most photogenic building on earth:

We then passed by Praça Dom José Gaspar and the Teatro Municipal before we crossed the Viaduto do Chá, a bridge over the urban freeway cutting right through the city center. The dark building right next to the flagpole is the municipal parliament.

We turned left and walked down Rua Libero Badaró until Avenida São João (the same I mentioned in one of my last posts, it actually leads almost until the Bairro of Barra Funda), crossed Parque Anhangabaú and visited the Palácio dos Correios, a building from the 1920s which used to host São Paulo’s central post office. After being vacant for several years, it was restored and is now home to an Espaço Cultural with changing exhibitions.

Afterwards, we visited the Edifício Martinelli, which was equally constructed in the 1920s and marks, as it were, the tipping point of São Paulo’s beginning verticalization. With a total height of 130 meters, It was Brazil’s highest building until 1947 and it boasts a roof terrace with a spectacular view of the city. A perfect opportunity to play around with my camera’s panorama function…

While the literal translation of the often-quoted phrase “São Paulo não para” means that the city doesn’t stop, that it’s bustling 24 hours a day, it obviously also captures the spatial dimension – the city literally seems endless, there’s building after building after building until the horizon. I had been told about it before, but standing on the roof terrace, distant from the colossus and at the time immersed in it, the experience was breathtaking. The center’s verticalization, predominantly taking place from the 1950s until the 1970s, has shown little respect for the area’s former spatial and architectural configuration, a form of violence which is palpable when contemplating the city’s skyline. At the same time, it is beautiful in a very distinctive manner, possibly because the modernist skyscrapers (on the upper picture, the Mirante do Vale, Brazil’s tallest building, is the most outstanding example) loose a bit of their compactness and become more airy and light-weight when seen from above. Besides, it might just be the thrill of being in the center of a giant field of forces, surrounded by countless movements, trajectories and histories – augmented reality without gadgets, as it were.

Back on street level, we went a few blocks further, passed by the BM&F Bovespa, Latin America’s most important stock exchange, and visited the old Banco de São Paulo building, an art deco gemstone from the 1930s. Today, it serves as a tourist information and an overeager employee with an unbearably raspy voice provided us with all kinds of leaflets and forced Leandro into a rather entertaining conversation about miliaria.

Passing by Edifício Triângulo, yet another of the Oscar Niemeyer’s numerous architectural footprints in São Paulo, we made our way to Praça da Sé, facing the Catedral Metropolitana, the city’s largest and most important church – Catholic, evidently. Besides, what’s striking about Sé is the mass of homeless people who spend their days (and probably their nights as well) in this area. This phenomenon can be observed throughout the city center, and it made me very sad, given the city’s enormous wealth and the huge number of vacant buildings in the very same area. I will write more about this issue in one of the next posts.

In the UNESP book store right next to Praça da Sé, I finally found the book I had been looking for – “A Cidade e a Lei” by Raquel Rolnik, one of Brazil’s most important urban scholars. Basically, the book contains a legal history of São Paulo’s urban development during the last 150 years. It came out in 1997 and is out of print by now, so it was a rather pricey purchase, but I got a discount and besides, it is crucial reading for my research project. Just when we walked out the book store, heavy rain set in (5 pm, chuva dos pobres – cf. the entry of Jan 9th) so we fled to a nearby Lanchonete where we had coffe and coxinhas. Fabio and Leandro showed lively interest in my recent acquisition.

We sat next to the window so we could observe the omnipresent umbrella salesmen doing their business, brave guys I have to say…

After the rain, we wanted to visit the Pateo do Collegio, the ancient Jesuit college where São Paulo was founded in 1554. It was built on a hill so the Jesuits were able to defend themselves against attacks of indigenous people. Sadly, it was closed already when we arrived.

We thus walked down Rua Boa Vista until we arrived at São Bento, an ancient Benedictine monastery which is still in use. We crossed the Viaduto Santa Efigênia right next to the aforementioned Mirante do Vale and had a glance upon the rush hour congestion on Avenida Prestes Maia. Poor commuters.

We went further into Santa Ifigênia, a neighborhood crammed with popular shopping streets and various galleries such as the Galeria do Rock, specialized in skate stuff and the like. In the middle of the nearby Largo do Paiçandu Square, the Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosário was built by the Irmandade dos Homens Pretos, an Afro-Brazilian confraternity, in 1906.

We walked until the corner of the Avenidas São Jõao and Ipiranga, a place made famous by Caetano Veloso in his song “Sampa”, an ambivalent declaration of love to São Paulo (“Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração / Que só quando cruza a Ipiranga e Av. São João”), where we said goodbye to Leandro. Fabio and I then went to the impressive Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (indeed, cultural patronage is a pronounced phenomenon in São Paulo), where we saw “Prazer”, a play after the Livro dos Prazeres by Clarice Lispector. Looking her up on wikipedia, I feel somewhat ashamed that I never heard of her before, but at least I discovered yet another source of Dirk von Lowtzow’s inexhaustible pool of inspiration…

After the play, we had some beers and walked home – considering the fact that it was 11 pm, I did not feel particularly “insecure” in the center. There were not many people, but everything was calm and all the illuminated buildings made for a very pretty backdrop. Back in Consolação, Rua Augusta was packed with party people and going out was a tempting perspective, but I was too tired after all the walking and overcharged with impressions I wanted to process unhurriedly. So Fabio left me alone and went out with some friends of his. I met him again today at 9 am, when I was just making coffee and he stumbled in through our apartment’s door, wholeheartedly drunk and supremely likeable. He told me about past night’s escapades, ate my cereals and went to bed. Next time I’ll go with him I guess.

NO

After the rather ambivalent impressions “O Som ao Redor” left me with, today we saw a movie I can recommend without restrictions – “NO” by Pablo Larraín, who unfolds a pretty original perspective upon the end of the Pinochet regime in Chile and upon the rules of political discourse in an age of mass media more generally.

Jan 17th

I just came back from a three-hours excursion to the Polícia Federal, located in Barra Funda, where I was supposed to register my presence in Brazil. In order to prevent any futile bus journeys, Fabio had called yesterday in order to find out whether I had to bring along any further documents. They said I didn’t so I arrived there today with my passport and some Reais just in case I had to settle any further bills. However, at the information desk I was told that Fabio was misinformed and that, actually, I had to prepare and bring along quite a pile of further documents, two passport photos and about 200 Reais to pay for my registration. Sacanagem. At least, the bus trip bore a nice recognition effect, since it took me along Avenida São João, a photo of which figures on the cover of Teresa Caldeira’s “City of Walls”.

Other than that, I subscribed to a local gym just around the corner, one of the cheap and ramshackle type, in order to prevent becoming a fatty of all the meat and beans I devour. My coach is called Klemens, cross-eyed, muscular, expert in military special forces and their respective combat techniques. His father was a Polish Jew, who emigrated to Brazil in the late 1920s with his parents, when he was still a child. When I met Klemens for my first training session, he was wearing an IDF T-Shirt (“Golan Infantery”) and asked me whether I was an Ashkenazi as well, since, according to him, my face bears slightly Jewish traits. He now teaches me a little Hebrew every time we meet, even though his active vocabulary certainly does not exceed fifty expressions. His favorite German phrase is “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann” – what a surprise…

Did you already know…

…that FDP is the official abbreviation for “filho da puta” in Brazil?

Jan 15th

Today, I had my first full-fledged working day so to speak, which basically consisted in hanging around at the CEM’s courtyard, writing mails to various persons and organizations who might be helpful for my research project and drinking way too much coffee – I am still feeling shaky and it’s seven pm already. Without actually intending it, I had thus occupied a strategically perfect place, since every half an hour, someone came along to have a coffee break so it was easy to engross them in conversations (insert evil laughter here). Thus, before noon I got to know Joaquim, editor of a the Novos Estudos journal, Lenora and Rafael, two recent PUC graduates working on a research project concerning the privatization of public healthcare, and Zé, who recently submitted his doctoral thesis on feminist movements in Paraguay if I remember right. When Zé heard about the subject I want to study in São Paulo (the role of so-called “cause lawyers” in the context of the city’s housing movements), he gave me an article some of his friends had just written on a similar topic and promised me to put me in contact with them. I then had lunch with Lenora and Rafael and spent the afternoon reading in the courtyard. Inbetween, there was even half an hour of blue sky. Later on, Marisa, another colleague of mine, gave me a ride to the next metro station so I did not have to walk. Now I’m back home, waiting for my caffeine high to pass by. This might take a while. Other than that, I am fine and had a good day today. Cheerio!