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Hélio Oiticica
Favela: a movement-space. The three conceptual figures briefly introduced here are connected to each other by
the idea of movement in the favelas. Consequently, the aesthetics that result from these fragmented, maze-like,
rhizomic spaces is a spatial aesthetics of the movement, or, better yet, the space-movement. The space-
movement would not be connected just to the physical space itself, but primarily to the movement of the path, to
the experience of walking it, and, at the same time, to the movement of the transforming space itself. The space-
movement is directly linked to its actors (the subjects of the action), who are not only those who move within
those spaces, but also those who build and continuously transform them. In the case of the favelas, these two
agents can be combined into one: the resident, who is also the builder of his own space. The idea itself of space-
movement requires the concept of action, or, better yet, the participation of the users. Unlike spaces that are
practically static and fixed (planned, designed, and finished), in the space-movement, the passive user
(spectator) always becomes the actor (and/or the co-author) and the participator. If we are going to preserve the
favelas’ identity and aesthetical specificity, we must encourage the idea of participation whenever favelas are
being urbanized, while at the same time preserving the space-movements. This idea is a paradox: how can we
preserve that which moves, how can movement become a patrimony? When it comes to favelas, if there is any
kind of patrimonial intention (in the sense of preserving the cultural and aesthetical identity of these spaces)
during urbanization, we should not be worried about preserving their architecture, their shanties, their urbanism,
nor their narrow streets; instead, we should try to preserve their movement, generated through their actors: the
residents. Whenever they attempt to urbanize the favelas, architects and urbanists should follow the movements
that have already been started by the local residents; this way, instead of fixing spaces through the creation of
boring, ordinary formal neighborhoods, we will be able to preserve the already existing movement, that is, the
life itself of the favelas (which is almost always much more intense and communal than that observed in formal
neighborhoods). But these professionals usually try precisely to fight against this “natural” movement, so that
“order” may supposedly be established. But why not try to manage this movement, directing it toward an
aesthetical and even functional purpose (i.e. a technical one), without necessarily imposing a pre-established,
conventional project? As it has already been established here, the conventional project is the great weapon
architects and urbanists like to use against the “natural” movement in the favelas, i.e. against the fragment, the
maze, the rhizome. In this case, the project shuts down the immanent potentialities of what already exists,
fixating forms beforehand, inhibiting unpredicted actions, and, above all, hampering real participation. In order
to preserve the space-movement, we must try to act without a conventional project, using micro-interventions,
that is, minimal interventions that will follow the natural and spontaneous flow that already exists in the favela.
This means respecting the differences in this vernacular and popular architecture and urbanism, as we preserve
their – fragmentary, maze-like, rhizomic – characteristics, following the aesthetics that has already been
established by the residents themselves, instead of trying to impose the aesthetics and logic of a scholarly
architecture and urbanism (which were not pondered nor later adapted for this type of urban situation).
Architects-urbanists who would begin to intervene in these different, already existing urbanities, in these new
urban situations already built with their own identity, should take on a new role: they should become like
“maestros” who simply conduct the different actors, managing the movement “flows” that already exist. And,
what is most important, architects-urbanists should make subtle, barely visible interventions, without building
real “architectonic works,” without caring about their formal architect’s “signature”; in other words, the work
would not have a clear “authorship,” thus becoming collective and anonymous, as the favela itself. In order for
that to happen, architects-urbanists would need only to let go of a certain demiurgic posture (in the platonic
sense of the term), so that, in a more humble fashion, they could follow the process already started by the
residents. It is possible to “urbanize” and preserve the favela’s otherness at the same time, through a certain
methodology of action (minimum intervention), without a conventional project, inspired by the favelas’ own
aesthetics. Moreover, this different kind of intervention – fragmentary, maze-like, and rhizomic – can be useful
even in the so-called city proper, especially in its limit-cases (the favela is just one of them), that is, where
architecture and urbanism’s traditional methods have not worked for quite some time.
1.The concept of pattern is used according to the acceptation given by Kevin Lynch, Good City Form, Cambridge Mass., MIT, 1981.
2.MichelFoucault, ‘Des espaces autres’ in AMC, October 1984.
3.Claude Lévi Strauss, La pensée sauvage, Paris, Plon, 1962.
4.Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, Paris, éditions G. Grés et Cie, 1925.
5.Chistopher Alexander, ‘A city is not a tree’ in Architectural Forum, April 1965.
6.Gilles Deleuze Felix Guattari, Mille Plateaux, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980.