Decifrando a esfinge: uma tentativa de análise do Conjunto JK

The present paper aims do proceed a critical analisys of some aspects related to the history, architectural configuration and polemics that surround the planning and construction of Conjunto Governador Kubitschek – Conjunto JK, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, during the decades of 1950-1970, since its conception until today. The information and data available over Conjunto Governador Kubitschek (as well as most highrise housing blocks over Latin America) are generally spare, incomplete and seldom of obscure origin. The research of information over Conjunto JK's construction usually leaves some (or many) loose ends, leaving room for deductions that depend much on the view, miopia or preconceptions of one who aims to look after the subject. A simple feature, though, is somehow one that amazes the most since its erection: the fact that “it is there”. From any point of view, its gigantic proportions and his history, surrounded by myths and defeats make it an unavoidable presence in the context of Belo Horizonte, independent of the judgement one makes of it or the importance one considers it may have. Most analisys of Conjunto JK fail for their subjectivity, which will be tried to avoid over this paper. At first, will be analized the contradictions involving the request of the project of Conjunto JK to Oscar Niemeyer, investigating the underlaying intentions through the readings of material published by the time it has been designed, most of them extracted from the books of Thais Pimentel and Carlos Teixeira, being these some of the few writings that touch the subject. Then will be identified how core dilemmas of the housing issues mat have influenced on the construction and finishing of the complex, having in mind the housing production model adopted and the measure of State involvement over the undertaking, lit by essays from Hermínia Maricato, Luiz Ribeiro and Robert Pechman, as well as the study of the incorporation and ruling documents produced during the condominum's establishment. Over the following part, it will be seen how the architectural response of Niemeyer for this project can be understood inside the state of architectural field at time, and also how it fits among his own works, helped by the vision of Anatole Kopp, Yves Bruand, Danilo Matoso Macedo and Carlos Eduardo Dias Comas. It will be analized how aspects concerning authorship and integrity of the oeuvre fit the position assumed by the architect facing the changes and critics the project went through along the troubles found over the building's execution. The target turns then to the description and critical analisys of the proper architectural as spatial features of the project, the changes it went through over its development and construction and, in the end, the modifications done over the building from then to today. It aims also to document this building as it has been built and its actual state, and not as it has been so many times published and republished. In the end, an atempt to identify how the following of facts over time could have mirrored on the occupancy and usage of the buildings along the decades until present moment, closing with a brief analisys of the process of revaluation and gentrification which the complex has been through over the last years.