The antechamber of the demolition: Revisiting the process of installation the Sé Square and Cathedral of São Paulo, in the early 20th century

Abstract

This article addresses a product of the relationships and demands in scale of the social actors, that is, the individuals and institutions in the public, ecclesiastical and secular spheres, involved in the process of the implantation of the Sé Square and Cathedral in the old central area of São Paulo, between the years 1903 and 1913. Placing on canvas the phenomenon of demolition in the urban making, we sought to understand how to carry out this intervention in the urban landscape, with the making of new urban structures such as the square
and the cathedral, demanded a circuit of proposals, definitions and an apparatus that thought, first, the making of a city in demolition. That is, a process for the dismantling of old and preexisting structures, which resulted in the displacement of numerous occupants of the target area. In this way, we focus on a collective architecture of political, symbolic and cipher arrangements around the work, analyzing its impact at the level of a network revealing the social face of the process, through the names, agreements and negotiations, tensions and contestations to the discourse about the realization of the work, which are not assimilated by historiography. In this sense, we have added an unprecedented primary documentation, the basis of our reflection, from the Department of Expropriations of São Paulo.