Modern Suburbia, Bougeois Utopia Reflections on São Paulo’a Modernization and Morumbi’s Suburban Development

Abstract

The suburbs formation in the outskirts of São Paulo’s urban core from the beginning of 20th century is a phenomenon that has motivated studies on the most diverse areas. It is known that, although suburbanization mainly involved low-income socioeconomic groups, it also encompassed medium- and high-income families. The current district of Morumbi, which was urbanized from the end of 1940s, comprises several neighborhoods that was planned as suburbs for high-income families. Among them, the Paineiras do Morumbi, designed by the architect Oswaldo Bratke (1907-1997), is an example of the pattern adopted in most part of that zone. This article examines precisely the suburbanization that involved part of the middle and upper income classes of São Paulo’s population by the end of 1940s, and which promoted, in this period, Morumbi’s occupation. The aim is to discuss the factors that have fostered the emergence of this process, as well as to elucidate the typical dynamics of development and urban configuration of the neighborhoods that today make up the district. First, this work reviews the main urban transformations occurred in São Paulo from the 1920s, when the city faced its first modernization. The second part examines Oswaldo Bratke's design for Paineiras do Morumbi, which is taken as a study case. In the closing reflection, the main motivations that drove Morumbi's suburbanization are pointed out, as well as it is punctuated the contradiction inherent to this process. In this sense, the suburbia seems to have been taken by part of the elite nuclear families as an opportunity to realize a modern life utopia in a bucolic but modernized setting, far from the “troubled” and heterogeneous urban conditions that were arising on the metropolis.