The discursive construction of «houses for the people» in Recife (1930s)

Abstract

The paper discusses the ways in which the question of social housing was posed in Recife in the early decades of this century. It focuses on the «mocambo» of the 1930s, both as an example of the architectural vernacular of the North East of Brazil and also as a threat to the health, morality and public order of the urban population. Figures romanticised by popular culture and the «new Brazilian man» are considered in relation to philanthropic ideas and doctrinal notions of «housing for the people» used in the first experiments in housing policy by the New State in Portugal.