My point of view:
on Architecture and Politics

Interview Date: 20-04-2011

Every city in the world wants to become a viable city, on a human scale if possible. How would you characterize your city?

I like to think of Curitiba more as a positive reference than an example; that’s how I’d characterize it, a positive reference in terms of how to work the conception of a city, in a way that articulates life, work, and mobility together.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

The main quest for a city is to improve its quality of life. A city with good quality of life creates many and diversified opportunities in terms of jobs, culture, leisure, technology, everything. The architecture has to be at service of the conception of the city: eco- architecture, not ego-architecture. Good architecture does help to generate added value within the city, in the sense that it creates urban references that connect to the self-esteem, to the identity relationship the citizen establishes with his/her city.

What is the importance of Architectural Tourism in your opinion? Does your city receive this kind of tourists? What modern architecture landmarks could place your city among the top destinations worldwide?

I believe that the city that is good for its citizens will be good for tourism. It goes back again to the issue of quality of life. Curitiba has traditionally been a destination for business tourism, but he urban landmarks that were introduced in the cityscape – its many parks, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, the Universidade Livre do Meio Ambiente, the Opera de Arame, to name a few, are singular buildings that, besides being valuable to the daily like of the “curitibanos” did increase the interest and the length of the stay of our visitors.

What is the importance of architectural, cultural and social events worldwide? What are the profits for a city holding such kind of major events?

In the event stimulates the coexistence, the chances to meet others and live the city; if it is connected to the city’s strategy of overall development, I’m all for it. What cannot happen is to invest on disconnected venues/infrastructure that will consume vast resources and end up as “white elephants”. 

Public spaces, green spaces, public transport. Is the urban environment of your city satisfactory for the people who live in it?

Curitiba has formerly been rated by the United Nations as one of the best capital cities to live in the world. It was been ranked as the best Brazilian city for business and investments. It was recently awarded the Clinton Climate Initiave C40 Cities, in 2007, and the Globe Award Sustainable City, that elects the most sustainable city in the world, in 2010.

It has over 40m2 of green areas per inhabitants, an efficient system of public transportation that carries over 2.4 million people per day, and is reference in recyclable garbage collection. There are plenty of parks and cultural facilities. We are a city in the developing world, and certainly there are many issues to be dealt with in basic areas such as housing and sanitation, but the important thing is to keep innovating and improving.

Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?

It was an opportunity to adjust focus – the more is invested in the quality of life in cities, the more job opportunities will be created, and the better the economy will run. One can’t help but wonder the possibilities would have opened if the amount of resources that was invested during the crisis to rescue financial institutions and automotive plants had been had been used to improve the quality of life of cities worldwide – including in Africa –and therefore create jobs in a different economy are...

In recent years attention turns to green urban regeneration. Do you think that it is imperative for the city or it’s just a new fashion with economic outcomes and covertly interests?

If it is a fashion, it is not serious. But if it is serious, if it reflects a constant concern with the improvement of the urban environment and its relationship with the natural environment, it is something to be pursued...

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

I’ll mix it up a little, naming Architects more than the buildings in themselves for the majority.

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