The architecture of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, is a mosaic of ancient and modern styles. This characteristic is most visible in the center of the city, the historic urban center, where examples of eighteenth-century architecture survive amidst nineteenth-century and contemporary buildings.
Overview The architectural evolution of Porto Alegre does not differ in its general mechanism from most large Brazilian cities, although it has some unique elements. Its condition of provincial capital almost from the beginning resulted in a tendency to expand and monumentalize. Today it is the largest city in the state, the seat of a Metropolitan Region, and one of the largest cities in Brazil. Throughout its history, it has collected an extensive series of monumental buildings, many of extraordinary value, and some advanced urban planning projects, but as a whole, this did not result in a coherent plan nor did it reveal a spirit of long-term planning, having grown vastly in a disorganized and poorly controlled way, with urban plans being very much linked to political and economic oscillations.
The architecture in the city began with the Portuguese colonial style, went through the neoclassical, eclectic, and modernist schools. Porto Alegre verticalized, expanded, merged with neighboring cities, and became a metropolis. Now its architecture is being renewed under the influence of postmodernism and globalization, developing a hybrid and internationalizing style. This has given rise to criticism about the de-characterization of its identity and the extensive destruction of irreplaceable historical architecture in the wave of "progress" and real estate speculation.
Today, the city is reorganizing its urban landscape with major infrastructure works, especially roads, and erecting significant examples of contemporary architecture. At the same time, it faces the challenges of growing into one of Brazil's largest capitals, with almost 1.5 million inhabitants. There is still a large population living in slums and without access to basic services, and dissatisfaction is growing with the directions that the public administration has adopted in the areas of urban planning, popular housing, use of special areas, urban mobility, nature preservation, and others. Urban revitalization projects promoted by the state and municipal governments, such as those of the Mauá Pier, the former Industrial District, and a program of concessions of parks and other public spaces to the private sector, have produced intense controversy.
The Portuguese Colonial Style
Porto Alegre was born due to the occupation of Rio Grande do Sul by Portuguese estancieiros and sesmeiros in the XVIII century, when this territory still legally belonged to the Spanish Crown. The settlement grew around a natural anchorage in the Guaíba Lake, a vast water mirror resulting from the merging of the mouth of four large rivers. This area is protected to the east and south by a gentle range of hills, which defines much of the geography of the place and also defines many architectural and urban solutions of the settlement. The lake, a few kilometers to the south, opens onto the Lagos dos Patos, which has communication with the sea at Rio Grande, difficult for ships, but highly sought after, as it is the only port and sea access to the interior of a large stretch of coastline that runs from Santa Catarina to the da Prata River. With these hydrographic characteristics and strategic importance, it would soon become an administrative headquarters of great importance in the geopolitics of the south of the continent. It became a flourishing commercial entrepôt and a busy fluvial port for ships of small and medium draught coming from the sea through Lagoa dos Patos, receiving goods, people, and even militias and settlers who would later be distributed throughout the vast surrounding region, both by land and up the various rivers that flowed into it. From this region, these people established contact with people from the Missões region - Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay - in addition to people from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Spain, and Portugal. It was a meeting point of many cultures, and its geography remains an important part of its cultural identity in contemporary times.
On December 7, 1744, Jerônimo de Ornellas received by royal charter possession of the land he had occupied since 1732 for animal husbandry, around the anchorage on the Guaíba known at the time as the Port of Viamão. Viamão was located a few kilometers to the east. Consolidating a series of previously sparse initiatives of occupation of the state, from 1752 onwards, families of Azorean immigrants sent by the Portuguese government began to arrive, giving rise to the historical center of the future Porto Alegre, and also to some conflicts with the first sesmeiro, Ornellas. The area was then expropriated and made legally available to the settlers already there, but the actual sharing and delivery of the individual lots would only happen in 1772. In 1760, a large surrounding region, ranging from the Central Depression, the northeast, and the entire coast, already de facto occupied by the Portuguese, was organized into the captaincy of Rio Grande de São Pedro. Indigenous peoples living in the area were gradually removed or exterminated. In 1772, the settlement was elevated to the status of a Freguesia, placed under the protection of Francis of Assisi, and officially named Freguesia de São Francisco do Porto dos Casais, in allusion to the Azorean couples who founded it, disconnecting it from the town of Viamão, then head of the Captaincy. Governor José Marcelino de Figueiredo then ordered the captain of engineering and cartographer Alexandre José Montanha to draw a plan. He organized the layout around the Alto da Praia, a hill by the lakeside from which there is an unobstructed view of the entire surroundings, an embryo of the Praça da Matriz (Matriz Square), the vital core of the settlement that would concentrate its main public buildings and then attract the elite.
In these early years, what was built was modest, and the buildings consisted of small adobe dwellings covered with straw scattered irregularly along the shores of the Guaíba. The first public place to appear was a cemetery, by the lake, but soon transferred to Alto da Praia. The Freguesia became the capital in 1773 even though it was not yet officially a village (this would only occur in 1809, permanently in 1810). The reason for the transfer of the political center to this place, which was still an inexpressive village, was due to its fortunate geographic location.
With this, came new infrastructure needs. Among them was the construction of the so-called "Clay Palace" ("Palácio de Barro"), the first important building of the small town, erected in 1773 at the behest of the governor, aiming to receive the general administration of the captaincy. The building was completed in 1789 and was used until 1896 when it was demolished. It was a two-story palace with two main floors and an attic, symmetrically organized - a central door with four windows on each side. Above, a row of windows, and a pitched roof. The openings had a curved arch, typical of colonial Baroque, and the upper ones received an ornamental cornice, also in a curve.Piratini Palace. Folder published by the RS State Government. Without date
As the Freguesia grew and became richer, the quality of construction also improved, leaving the provisional in favor of the typical colonial style common to all of Brazil, a Portuguese heritage more permanent, voluminous, complex, and ornamental, and which is described aesthetically as a derivation of the Baroque. A special connection with the Azorean version of this Baroque is also often cited since the first waves of settlers came from the Azores, which had developed a rich architectural tradition, although this heritage is controversial.
However, the most ambitious project of this early settlement was the Mother Church ("Igreja Matriz"), whose construction was ordered in the ecclesiastical provision that created the Freguesia. The works began in 1780, based on a drawing sent ready-made by the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro, whose authorship is unknown. Its design was late Baroque, or Rococo, and very simple, with little external ornamentation. Its most characteristic element was the delicate undulating pediment, which otherwise followed the functional plan of the Catholic church during the colony: a two-story façade in a tripartite scheme, with decorated openings, an ornamental pediment, and two lateral bell towers. Inside, as was colonial practice, it was more luxurious, with a vestibule under the choir, a nave, a chancel decorated with wood carving, a scenographic retable in the background, secondary altars in side niches, and statuary. The church was not exceptionally rich, but had a very significant internal decoration in a vigorous Rococo style, similar to what can still be seen today in the Mother Church of Viamão. Its construction took many years, and even without being finished, it already needed restoration, as can be seen in an order from the Count of Caxias in 1846 requiring the finishing of the left tower, plastering on the outside, and repairing of the roof that was already in ruins. From the same period and erected on the same site is the Casa da Junta, dated 1790, in a style very close to the Palácio de Barro, but smaller in size. It is the oldest building in the city still standing and served as the headquarters of the Legislative Assembly and the Board of Administration and Collection of the Treasury. Its current appearance is not entirely original, having been remodeled in the 19th century.
The heritage of the colonial style remained strong in the city until the end of the 19th century, especially regarding popular architecture; very austere, with ornaments reduced to a wrought iron railing in the upper floor openings, transformed into doors, and more rarely, a tile coating on the facade. Due to the needs imposed by the urban model of the time, partly for reasons of security and ease of defense in a time of constant military conflicts, the facades were attached, built on the alignment of public roads, with side walls on the limits of the land, leaving yards to the rear. The dwellings could be one or two stories high and built on long, narrow plots of land, their rooms were arranged in a row, mostly poorly ventilated and illuminated, some without any opening to the outside, the so-called alcoves. At the ends of the row were two larger rooms, a drawing room at the front and a multi-purpose room at the back, with a kitchen, dining room, and service area. The material used was adobe or brick, with tiled roofs that sometimes ended in curved eaves. They were plastered and whitewashed on the outside, and the openings had exposed wooden frames. One of the oldest examples of this urban type of residence that has survived to the present day is the Casa Ferreira de Azevedo, but in a ruinous condition, listed by the Municipality but abandoned by its owners.