THE CULTURAL SPACE OF RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Robert N. St. Clair, University of Louisville

Wei Song, University of Louisville

 

Introduction

Rio de Janeiro (the river of January) is known to Brazilians as a cidade maravilhosa (a wonderful city) because it is always full of life, sound, and color.  It is synonymous with the celebrations of the Carnival that takes place in that city.  The residents, however, refer to themselves as cariocas, a term taken from the Tupi language meaning “white person.”  Rio de Janeiro is the second major city in Brazil and for over two hundred years, it served as the capital of that country.  When Kubitschek was elected president of that country in 1955, he was instrumental in having Brasilia built where the new capital can now be found. Nevertheless, Rio de Janeiro remains as a vibrant financial center with over 11,750,000 inhabitants.  The city is located on the Bay of Guanabara and is juxtaposed between the mountains and the sea.  It is named the river of January because it was discovered in the month of January 1502. Unfortunately, the city is not located at the mouth of a river but in the bay of Guanabara.  This harbor has made the city an important port that competes successfully with the neighboring states of Espirito Santo and São Paulo. 

Avenida de Rio de Janeiro

The historic center of the city also serves as its financial center.  Many of the Embassies are located here.  It is the home of Brazil’s two largest corporations, Petrobras and Vale (formerly Companhia Vale do Rio Doce).  The former has 16 refineries which create a range of products (gasoline, cooking gas, and asphalt).  Petrobras is known for its leadership in deep-water exploration and has overseas oil fields in Africa and the Gulf of Mexico.  The latter, Vale, is also the largest producer of iron ore and pellets.  It is the second largest producer of nickel and leads in the production of manganese, ferroalloys, copper, bauxite, potash, kaolin (China clay), alumina and aluminum. In the electric energy sector, the company participates in consortia and currently operates nine hydroelectric plants.  Hence, it is a large producer of hydroelectricity.  In addition to Petrobras, many of the Brazilian branches of Shell, ESSO and EBX (Brazilian Mining, gas, and oil giant) are headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. The telecommunications giants Intelig and TV Globo are based in the city along with the major newspapers in the country such as Jornal doe Brasil, O Globo, o Dia, and Business Rio.  The major international pharmaceutical companies (Merck, Roche, Arrow, Darrow, Baxter, Mayne, and Mappel) also have their headquarters in the city.

In addition to the financial aspects of the city, one finds many parks, public gardens, and many excellent museums.

Museu Histórico Nacional (National Museum of History) - A museum of Brazilian history stretching from colonial to imperial times

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts) - Includes large paintings from Academicist and Neoclassical Brazilian artists

MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna (Museum of Modern Art) - The second most important contemporary art museum in Brazil,

Museu da Imagem e do Som (Image and Sound Museum) - For researchers about Brazilian film, radio, and broadcasting industry (downtown).

Museu Naval (Navy Museum) - Located downtown.

Museu do Carnaval (Museum of Carnival) - History of Brazilian carnival and parades (in downtown, next to the Sambódromo).

Museu Chácara do Céu - An important collection of South American modern art (in Santa Tereza).

The Home of Brazilian Music

Rio de Janeiro is also a very important place for anyone who is interested in the urban music of Brazil.  The Bossa Nova, the Samba, the Chorro and the Favela Carioca (known in the US as Funk Carioca) were born in this city.  Funk Carioca was deeply influenced by American Funk music in the 1970s.  During the 1980s, it incorporated the Hip Hop beat into its musical genre (Sansone, 2002).  It is the home to such internationally recognized Brazilian artists as Antonio Carlos Jobim. Many popular songs are sung in the carioca dialect of Rio. 

The largest concert hall in Rio is in Barra, with a capacity for 6,000. This is where major international artists and groups usually perform. Another location for concerts are at Canecão in Botafogo and for larger groups there is the Apotheosis Square, the Sambodrome and the Maracanã Stadium.   

Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim is one of the most famous musical artists from Rio de Janeiro.  He is noted as a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was the primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style and has been acknowledged as one of the most influential popular composers of the 20th century. His songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and internationally.  His musical roots were based on another legendary Brazilian artist, musician, and composer, Pixinguinha.  He is the composer who began   modern Brazilian music in the 1930s.  Jobim, it should be noted, was also influenced by the French composers Claude Debussy and Ravel, and by jazz. When Jobim died, the cariocas named their international airport in his honor.

The Cultural Spaces within the City

As a colonial city, Rio de Janeiro offers significant insights into the distinct urban morphology of Latin American cities that reflects both their colonial origins and their contemporary growth. Colonial cities followed standardized plans. All Spanish cities in Latin America, for instance, were built according to the Laws of the Indies, drafted in 1573. The laws explicitly outlined how colonial cities were to be built, which is still apparent at current time. Normally it involved a gridiron street plan centered on a church and central plaza, walls around individual houses, and neighborhoods constructed around central, smaller plazas with parish churches or monasteries (Rubenstein, 2008).

From the perspective of urban functioning districts, usually a clear central business district (CBD) exists in the old colonial core. Radiating out from the central business district is older middle- and lower-class housing. In general, residential quality declines as one moves from the center to the periphery. The exception would be the elite spine, a newer commercial and business strip that extends from the colonial core to newer parts of the city. Along the spine, one finds superior services, roads, and transportation. The city’s best residential zones, as well as shopping malls, are usually on either side of the spine. Most major urban centers also have a ring road or beltway highway as the primary edge that circumscribes the city core. Straddling from the beltway is a zone of peripheral squatter settlements where many of the urban poor live in the worst housing. Services and infrastructure are extremely limited. The dense ring of squatter settlements (called favelas) that encircle Latin American cities reflect the speed and intensity with which these zones were created. 

Model of Latin American City

In Rio de Janeiro, people with high incomes are clustered in the center of the city and to the south, whereas people with low incomes live in the northern suburbs. The distribution of income groups in different city districts coincides with other social characteristics, such as the share of households with a telephone, automobile, or television. Physical geography also influences the distribution of social classes within Rio. The original site of the city was along the west shore of Guanabara Bay. Residents were attracted to the neighborhoods immediately south of the central area, such as Copacabana and Ipanema, to enjoy spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean and access to the beach. On the other hand, low-income households have clustered along the northern edge of the city, where steep mountains have restricted construction of other types of buildings.

Distribution of High- and Low-income households in Rio de Janeiro

(Source: Rubenstein, 2008: Figure 13-16)

Centro (downtown or CBD) is the historic centre of the city, as well as its financial centre. The Paço Imperial, built during colonial times to serve as a residence for the Portuguese governors of Brazil, as well as many historic churches, such as the Candelária Church, the colonial Cathedral and the modern-style Rio de Janeiro Cathedral, are located in this city core. Around the Cinelândia square there are several landmarks of the Belle Époque of Rio, such as the Municipal Theatre (inspired by the Paris Opera) and the National Library building. Among its several museums, the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts) and the Museu Histórico Nacional (National Historical Museum) are the most important, with the history of the former beginning in 1808. Also located in central Rio is Passeio Público, an 18th-century public garden, as well as the imposing arches of the Arcos da Lapa, a Roman-style aqueduct built around 1750. The landmarks in the central district of Rio de Janeiro strongly symbolize the Spanish clolonial heritage of the city.

Zona sul (the South Zone) is composed of several districts that are tourist friendly with its large hotels located along the Atlantic beach coastline.  The names of these beaches are well known to tourist. They are São Conrado, Leblon, Ipanema, Copacabana, Aproador, and Leme.  Among these, the neighborhood of Copacabana hosts the famous New Year’s celebration known as the Reveillon.  Each year, 2-3 million revelers crowd onto the Copacabana beach to watch the fireworks displays that are launched from boats within the bay of Guanabara.  They ceremoniously greet the New Year dressed in white.  If they want to attract  love they wear red; if they want to attract wealth, they wear yellow.  If they want to be healthy, they wear green. One color that is not worn for the event is black. With lighted candles in hand, they advance into the bay to culminate the ceremony.  Lots of people bring flowers and throw them into the sea before midnight.  They are making an offering to Yemanja, the deity of the seas. New Year’s Eve is one of the most important celebrations in Rio de Janeiro.  It is second only to the Carnival.  The celebration a festa da lemanja (the goddess of water) on the eve of the New Year brings in people from all over Brazil and from other parts of the world.

The South Zone has many large tourist hotels located along the Atlantic beach coast line.

Zona norte (the North Zone) is home to the Maracanã Stadium.  It was once the world’s largest soccer stadium with a capacity of 180,000 fans.  This was the capacity of the stadium during the 1950 World Cup.  This stadium, however, has been under construction to meet the new safety standards and now has a capacity of only 95,000 spectators.  It will eventually hold 120,000 people.  The famous Samba schools (Manueira, Salgueiro, Serrano, and Unidos da  Tijuca) are located in the North Zone. 

The Maracanã Stadium in the North Zone was home to the 2005 Soccer World Cup. Rio de Janeiro will host the 2014 Soccer Cup (and the city is competing with 3 others to host the 2016 Olympic games.

Zona oeste (the West Zone) marks the fourth region of the city.  It includes many of the parks and gardens that are characteristically associated with the city.  The oldest of these is the noted Barra da Tijuca, a flat expanse of formerly undeveloped coastal land which is now undergoing rapid construction.  It has attracted the richer inhabitants of the city who populate their high rise condominiums and sprawling shopping centers.

As Fave;as (The Shanty Towns)

A favela is a slum, an illegal settlement that is built on squatted lands. Brazil has one of the worst distributions of wealth in the world and the poor can be found in the slums.  The favela dwellers differ in many ways from slum dwellers in other countries. They build their houses out of wood and garbage, then later when they have the money, they upgrade to a home made concrete home. They are located on the sides of the hills facing the same famous beaches as the wealthy dwellers of Leblon and Ipanema. 

What is unique about the flavelas in Rio is that they are located on the hillsides.  This makes them vulnerable to landslides and only the very poor live there.  They are conveniently located near the very wealthy and work for them as servants (Dos Santos Oliveira, 1996).  There are over 500 such slums and each is a community complete with groceries, markets, clothing stores, pharmacies, repair shops, and other kinds of small businesses.  Those living in the slums in the South Zone have the best chance of finding employment among the infrastructure of the wealthy. 

It is generally agreed upon that the first favela was created in November 1897 when 20,000 veteran soldiers were brought to Rio de Janeiro and left with no place to live. Some of the older favelas were originally started as quilombos (independent settlements of fugitive African slaves) among the hilly terrain of the area surrounding Rio.  This number later grew as slaves were liberated in 1888 with no place to live. In the 1940s, there was a housing shortage and many of the poor found refuge in the favelas.  The people who live in these slum areas are called favelados.

One of the more negative aspects of the slums is that is dominated by drug lords.  Here the homicide rate is very high (30 victims per week) and this places Rio de Janeiro  as 206th among the top 5,565 most violent cities in Brazil.  Drug use is highly concentrated in these areas and they are run by local gangs in each highly populated community. Drug sales and use run rampant at night when many Favelas host their own baile (dance party).  It is a business venture where many different social classes can be found and where drug sales are highly profitable.  It is estimated that such sales bring in about $ 150 million US dollar per month, according to official estimates released by the Rio media (Pino, 1997). 

Religious Diversity

There are many religious groups in Rio de Janeiro.  Their diversity can be found in many of the cultural practices of that region.  O Cristo do Redentor (the statue of Christ the Redeemer) was financed by Roman Catholic.  They make up about 60% of the population.  This number, however, is rapidly decreasing as the Baptist Evangelical movement is making steady progress in that country.

 As noted in the discussion of the celebration of the Eve of the New Year in Copacabana, the goddess Iemanjá, also known as Yemoja or Janaína, is one of the deities called orixás which have spiritual dominion over elements of nature that include fire, wind, thunder, stones, marshes, and rivers (Brown, 1994). Orixá worship predates Christianity by thousands of years but it was prohibited in Brazil until recently. The practice of making offerings to Iemanjá for the New Year was illegal until the 1950s. African slaves who were forcibly transported from their homelands were persecuted or killed by the Portuguese landowners for following their religion. To protect themselves, they syncretized each orixá to a particular Catholic saint. That way, they could say they were worshipping Jesus or the Holy Mother or Saint Anthony when their masters interrupted their religious services.

Those who are serious in their worship of Iemanjá in Brazil generally belong to either the Umbanda or Candomblé religion. Both are of African origin and retain their original African character (Bastide, 2001).  For example, Umbanda combines ecumenical elements of Congo, Angola, Yoruba, Roman Catholic, Spiritualist, and indigenous Brazilian spiritual tradition, is widely practiced in Rio where there are hundreds of centros espíritus Umbandistas.

Geology and Geography of the Region

Most of Rio de Janeiro lies on a geological structure known as the Brazilian Crystal Basement.  The study of the geological landscapes is the concern of geomorphologists who seek to understand why landscapes look the way they do (Selby, 1985).  In other words, they want to understand landforms and their history and dynamics. Landforms evolve in response to a combination of natural and anthropogenic processes. The landscape is built up through tectonic uplift and volcanism.  The Brazilian Crystal Basement is a structure that has gone through many tectonic alterations which accounts for the hills, mountains, and valleys that characterize the coastal line of Rio de Janeiro, Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) and Corvocado (hunchback) mountains are among these tectonic movements. The region of Rio de Janeiro, is geologically interesting because it can be divided into three morphological frames.

A Floresta da Tijuca (the Tijuca Forest) is a mountainous rainforest in the city of Rio de Janeiro.  It has 8,150 acres which makes it the largest forest area within a city.  Rainforests, it should be noted, are important because they are home to two-thirds of all the living animal and plant species on Earth.  However, what makes this rainforest unique is that it was hand-planted.  This is because the original forest had been destroyed to make way for coffee farms, Tijuca was replanted by Major Manuel Gomes Archer in the second half of the 19th century, in a successful effort to protect Rio's water supply.  By 1870, this forest area had around 60,000 trees, mostly of a native variety. 

 

Pão de Açúcar  (Sugar Loaf Mountain) is a peak that rises 1,299 feet above sea level and stands at the mouth of Guanabara Bay.Sugar Loaf Mountain is a raised topographic landform resembling the characteristic canonical shape of a sugar cone. 

O Cristo Redentor

The statue of o cristo redentor (Christ the Redeemer) is stands out 120 feet above the 2,229 foot Corvocado Mountains in the Parque Nacional da Tijuca. (Tijuca Forest National Park).  It has become the cultural icon of Rio de Janeiro.  It weights 1,145 pounds and is the tallest statue of its kind in the world.  At night, the statue is surrounded by bright lights and it can be seen clearly from nearly every part of the city.  The concept for the statue began in 1850 when Pedro Maria Boss, a Catholic priest suggested the idea as a national monument to Princess Isabela.  She completely dismissed the idea.  By 1889, Brazil became a Republic and its laws mandating the separation of church and state curtailed the project even further.  It was revived in 1921 by a group known as the Catholic Circle of Rio.  They succeeded and found the funds to finance the project.  A local engineer, Hector da Silva Costa designed the statue and Paul Landowski was the sculptor.  The construction took nine years and the monument was completed by October 12, 1931.  It is made of reinforced concrete.  The outer layers are covered with soapstone, a product that was chosen for its durable qualities.  This landmark continues to draw attention and in 2007, it was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (Hufferd, 2005a).  The statue continues to draw the amazement and wonder of over 300,000 tourists each year.

Concluding Remarks

Rio de Janeiro began during the colonial period it grew in importance because of its prime location for the exporting of sugar cane.  When gold and diamonds were found in Minas Gerais, it was Rio that benefited from that new trade.  Eventually, the port was known for its exportation of coffee crops.  As the city grew, it developed a new infrastructure and the downtown area developed into its financial center.  With the increase in new capital, the city developed its own rail and transport system making it one of the busiest ports in Brazil. 

The next major phase in the growth of the city had to do with its role as the capital of Brazil in 1763. This occurred when Brazil became a Republic.  With the new growth, the downtown area was destroyed to make way for newer buildings and widened avenues.  The north zone of the city became highly industrialized with street cars that wee electrified and the area soon attracted the working class.  The wealthy soon moved to the south zone.

After the Second World War, Rio de Janeiro began to assume the form of a modern city.  Street cars were replaced by automobiles and transportation avenues were improved.  A seven mile bridge was constructed between Rio and Niteroi.  The shift from an agricultural based economy to an industrial economy soon took place.  This caused a massive increase in the population of the city. 
As fast as cities are growing in Latin America and in many other developing nations, their cores are often filled with decrepit buildings left over from the colonial era. The colonial artifacts have long been accepted as a legitimate component of the urban history and urban cultural space. After World War II, most of these nations did what they could to clear away the remnants of their hated colonial past. In Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro, much of the colonial heritage was swept away during the late twentieth century in a tide of reconstruction that was symbolic of self-proclaimed Brazilian modernity and that signified for many a break with their colonial past. What to replace them with? The "clear out the old mentality" is changing now, as governments discover that old buildings are a bankable asset. Renewed emphasis has been placed on retaining the traditional context and meaning contained within both the indigenous and the colonial built environments. The basic spatial framework, which blends traditional elements of Latin American culture with the forces of modernization, is reshaping the urban scene and urban landscape.

Today, the cultural spaces of Rio de Janeiro can be found in its four zones.  These are linked by a metro system.  The new economic growth in the city is occurring in the West Zone.  It is competing with the Central Zone.  The South Zone has become a tourist area with its large hotels lining the coastline.  The North Zone contains the working class and the soul of the city.

Rio de Janeiro remains as the second largest city in Brazil.  This statement means much more when one realizes that São Paulo was rated until recently as the third largest city in the world with some 20 million inhabitants. 

 

References

 

CHAPTER TEN

REFERENCES

St. Clair, Robert and Song, Wei. (2009). The Many Layers of Culture within each City: A Theory of Cultural Geography. Edwin Mellen Publishers.