Urban environmental heritage: a recovery

Abstract

This article discusses the attempts of expanding conservation actions in São Paulo during the 1970s and 1980s through the concept of urban environmental heritage, emphasizing its creation because of the relationship between new metropolitan, environmental and cultural matters discussed at the time. Emerging from the scope of territorial planning, with the contribution of the heritage preservation area, it was tied to this context. From the beginning, it was the subject of attention and discussion by professionals from different formations – architects, historians and geographers, among others – targeted with different approaches and understandings. Recovering the context in which the concept has been originated, and the attempts to apply it, helps it to regain its course and its different interpretations. Being an innovative approach, urban environmental heritage had a short lifespan in heritage preservation speeches, even though it still is a relevant and current concept to bring together conservation practices and social expectations of recognition of different identities.