The Heart and the Dragon: investigating effects of two projects on the old town centre of Fortaleza

Abstract

Fortaleza’s old town centre, as those of many others Brazilian capitals, has been suffering a serious decaying process. As an effort to counteract such process, public authorities and nongovernmental organizations have implemented strategies aimed at “revitalizing” the area. Among these, two interventions carried out in the last decades have deserved national attention: the latest redevelopment of Fortaleza’s most prestigious square, Praca do Ferreira, completed in 1991; and a building complex designed to accommodate cultural and artistic activities, the Centro Cultural Dragao do Mar, inaugurated in 1998. Both projects have been praised and criticised on various basis and much controversy has been generated. But whereas the latest renovation works of Praca do Ferreira is thought to have brought back part of the urban vitality of yonder days as a place of encounter and copresence, the cultural centre has said to have drained animation in the surrounding area by negatively interfering in nearby places such as Praia de Iracema, a former dock area that had retained considerable activity as a focus of bohemian life until recently. Although notions of spatial disconnection and segregation are often brought into the debate concerning both interventions, these are not considered within a systemic perspective of interactive effects that may stem, at least partially, from morphological aspects of the urban design. Spatial properties such as global accessibility and its possible consequences on patterns of movement, land use and urban vitality have, therefore, been largely ignored. This paper aims to investigate these properties following the notion that vitality in town centre areas may result, at least partly, from space structures shaped by properties that facilitate (or even induce) interface among humans and between humans and artefacts such as buildings, squares, sidewalks etc. The research hypothesis is that whereas the redevelopment of Praca do Ferreira has generated spatial properties of accessibility and visibility that contributes to enhance movement and co-presence, the construction of the Centro Cultural Dragao has not.