Concrete and imaginary: Meanings of Roosevelt Square, São Paulo

The objective of this work is to observe how social sentiments are constructed in a public space through examining the case of Roosevelt Place. Located in downtown São Paulo, this square has been used in diverse ways over the course of its existence. This paper reads and articulates discourses, images, and narratives about the plaza, a space with on-going changes related to its meaning and significance.

In this way, time and space receive treatment in considering communication in urban life. Regarding questions of time, the square is considered to be the confluence of memories of the past and projects for the future. As such, this study seeks to relate residual feeling of past dynamics, emerging ways of thinking about space, and institutional proposals and projects.

This study focuses on three main questions: the construction of a narrative of the decline of the region, the square as an image of a place where one can be free, and the official and market notions about the space.

The square´s concrete structure has been created as part of an official project to increase the road network of São Paulo, during the brazilian military government. Before this, Roosevelt Square was a residual area used as parking lot and surrounded by sophisticated nightclubs. When the concrete plaza was founded (in 1970), it was taken as a civic place according to the discourse of the regime. But, soon, the image of civism was denied and another social narrative has been formulated, one that involves images of decadence and technical critiques for the project. At the same time, different versions were being formulated by several groups that have used the square: gays, rappers, skaters, artists and others. Recently, the plaza is passing by a process of culturalization, and ghosts of ancient imaginaries reappear in the public debate.