Advisor: Maira Machado Martins
Dissertation: Limits of suburban living: Railroad and spatial segregation in Marechal Hermes, Rio de Janeiro
Defense date: 12/09/2024
Abstract
Recognizing the multiplicity of dimensions present in the suburb-train
relationship, this research aims to investigate the process of formation and the
transformations that took place in the Marechal Hermes neighborhood (North
Zone of Rio de Janeiro) based on the implementation of the railway branches that
cross it (beginning of the 20th century). It also aims to understand how the
division caused by these physical elements has influenced the constitution of the
territory and the social organization of the neighborhood up to the present day.
Contemporary studies of Rio’s suburbs, examining the implications of spatial
fragmentation in the neighborhood through case studies, have encouraged me to
understand how the physical segregation caused by these urban boundaries
permeates the imagination of the population, influencing the processes of social
hierarchization and segregation on a local scale. Based on the concepts
presented by Merleau-Ponty, Juhani Pallasmaa, Kevin Lynch, Michel de Certeau,
Bernard Lepetit, Pierre Bourdieu, and Marion Segaud, I propose a departure from
the pragmatic and functionalist bases that still frame architecture today, to reflect
on some of the “non-objective” aspects related to the production of space. What
are the effects of the elements that make up the urban landscape on the way we
perceive and relate to the space around us? Through the phenomenological
approach and space in its anthropological dimension, what lessons can we draw?
The fragmentation resulting from the implementation of the railway branches
(Supervia and Reta de Honório) in the Marechal Hermes neighborhood still has a
significant influence on the patterns of occupation, use, and appropriation of
spaces.