O fórum de Uberlândia: "Brutalismo Paulista" em Minas?

Upon coming across the Municipal Courthouse in a visit to the city of Uberlândia, architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha exclaimed: “It's the Paulista Brutalism in Minas!” The title of our communicative enterprise comes from this very exclamation and from the question it raises. We will present an analysis of this building, aiming to verify its possible connections to the “Paulista School” - or “Paulista Brutalism”, as well as to the architectural debates in magazines and to the architectural production in Minas Gerais and in other regions of the country at the time of its conception. The architects responsible for the building are José Carlos Laender de Castro and Roberto Pinto Manata, both graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais' School of Architecture (EAUFMG) in 1963. Documents on this building were gathered from an inventory created in the research project entitled “Modern Architecture Documentation in Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Parnaíba: History and Preservation”, developed by the FAUeD/UFU's Center for Research on Architecture History and Theory. The Courthouse is located in a central area of the city, where, initially, there was supposed to be built Uberlândia's Civic Center, designed by Ary Garcia Rosa and Roberto Burle Marx – a large square where buildings of the three governmental powers would coexist in the heart of the city. Among the designs which were sketched at that time, only the square (which has completely lost its original features) and the Courthouse were carried out in the 70's. In this presentation we will focus on the reflections drawn from the search for links between the Courthouse project and the architectural production at that time in Brazil. In 1979, the first edition of the Pampulha Magazine (November-December) is published in Belo Horizonte and it shows a sample of the “Young Mineiros” production along the ten previous years, entitled “Post-Brasília Architecture” and “Architecture in Minas after the 60's”. The Uberlândia Courthouse project, finished in 1977, is part of this sample, which mostly introduces architects graduated from EAUFMG. Upon analyzing the sample designs, we can observe the diversity in the production of these architects, all graduates from the same school. According to the concepts established both by international and national historiography, some of these designs could be defined as “Brutalist” architecture. This communication's goal is to present reflections which will highlight the possible connections between the production of these architects graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais' School of Architecture and the so-called  “Paulista School” or “Paulista Brutalism”, also taking into account the potential correlations with architecture said to be “Brutalist” developed in other regions of the country, as we know this architectural expression repeated itself throughout Brazil at that time and, for some authors, is an international movement that gives following to modern architecture.