Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires: Public Space and Public Consciousness in Fin-De-Siecle Latin

America
Author(s): Jeffrey D. Needell
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 519-540
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Rio de Janeiroand Buenos Aires:
Public Space and Public
Consciousness in Fin-de-Siecle Latin
America
JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

University of Florida

The ParisianFaubourgSaint Germainand perhapsthe Rue de la Paix and the boule-

vardsseemed the adequatemeasureof luxuryto all of the snobs. The old colonial shell
of the Latin Americancities little approximatedsuch scenery. The example of Baron
de Haussmann and his destructive example strengthenedthe decision of the new
bourgeoisies who wished to erase the past, and some cities began to transformtheir
physiognomy:a sumptuousavenue, a park, a carriagepromenade,a luxurioustheater,
modem architecturerevealed that decision even when they were not always able to
banish the ghost of the old city. But the bourgeoisies could nourishtheir illusions by
facing one anotherin the sophisticatedatmosphereof an exclusive club or a deluxe
restaurant.There they anticipatedthe steps that would transmute"the great village"
into a modem metropolis.
Jos6 Luis Romero'

In these few phrases, the late and lamented Romero evokes the matter before
us. That is, he points to an era in Latin American history, roughly I870 to
1914, in which the national elites of the most wealthy countries used their
capital cities as statements of their presumption, or pretention, to "modem"
status for themselves and for their patrias. This statement was composed of
two parts. The first held that the capital of a nation which was truly part of
Civilization must needs appear as such-it must look like Paris. The second
assumed or stated outright that those aspects of the city which betrayed its
"colonial" origins or character must be destroyed or hidden. The point of this
ideological exercise in urban planning was clear: The change in the cities'
public spaces was to represent (or induce) the change in public consciousness.
An anti-"colonial" Frenchification of the urban facades and meeting places
was associated with the Europhile identity of newly triumphant rulers and the
nations they directed.

Latinoamerica:las ciudades y las ideas (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1976), 249.

0010-4175/95/3520-2383 $7.50 + .10 ? 1995SocietyforComparativeStudyof SocietyandHistory

519
520 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

THE IMAGE OF PARIS

As Romero indicates, the choice for Paris was a choice for the city remade by
Haussmann. The reader needs no prompting to recall the impact of Napoleon
III's prefect-the premier city of Europe was embellished with sweeping
boulevards and places carrefours, with new monuments and Garier's splen-
did Thedtre de l'Opera, all to the applause of a European world accustomed to
look to Paris as the model of civilized achievement. In urbanistic terms, the
lessons were impressive and simple. By 1870, the cultural capital of the world
was identified with broad thoroughfares flanked by massive facades in the
Beaux-Arts Eclectic taste of the period, was associated with perspectives
trained on monuments and great public squares, and was celebrated for a
dynamic, rationalized system of articulation, born of hygienic (and often
merciless) urban demolition.2
Latins had looked to France since the late seventeenth century, when Louis
XIV's kingdom had wrested European hegemony from Spain. By the nine-
teenth century, French was the second language of the educated; and French
literature, philosophy, fashion, decoration, and architecture were increasingly
the mark of elite, civilized status-and this in spite of the economic hegemo-
ny and ideological attractions of England.3
In the case of both Argentina and Brazil, this seeming contradiction is
especially striking. Indeed, one might argue that the increased trade the En-
glish facilitated made possible the increased cultural Frenchification of these
two nations' elites. Coffee and other agricultural or extractive goods (sugar,
cotton, rubber) were exploited in Brazil by way of infrastructure and capital
which owed much to the English; the same must be said of Argentine beef and

2 See David H.
Pinkey,Napoleon III and the Rebuildingof Paris (Princeton:Princeton, I958);
J. M. Chapmanand BrianChapman,The Life and Times of Baron Haussmann(London, 1957);
and LeonardBenevolo, The Origins of Modern TownPlanning (Cambridge,MA, 1976). For a
resume of the Paris reforms, see Jeffrey D. Needell, "Makingthe CariocaBelle Epoque Con-
crete," Journal of Urban History, 10:4 (August 1984), 391-97.
3 On the cultural
hegemony of Francein the Peninsulaand Latin America, see RichardHerr,
The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton:Princeton, 1958), chs. 3,6, passim;
A. H. de Oliveira Marques,History of Portugal, 2 vols. (New York:Columbia, 1972, 1976),
I:ch.8, II:ch.Io, passim; Mario G6ngora, Studies in the Colonial History of Spanish America
(Cambridge,England:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1975), ch.5, passim; Jean Franco,An Intro-
duction to Spanish-AmericanLiterature (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
I969); Tulio Halperin-Donghi,TheAftermathof Revolutionin LatinAmerica (New York:Harper
and Row, I973), ch.3, passim; BenjaminKeen and MarkWasserman,A History of LatinAmerica
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, I988), ch. I , passim; JeffreyD. Needell, A TropicalBelle Epoque
(Cambridge,England:CambridgeUniversityPress, I987); on the role of England, see Halperfn-
Donghi, Aftermath, ch.2, passim; Frank Safford, "Politics, Ideology and Society," and Tulio
HalperfnDonghi, "Economy and Society," in Leslie Bethell, ed., CambridgeHistory of Latin
America, 5 vols. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985), v.3, passim;
D.C.M. Platt, LatinAmerica and British Trade, i806-1914 (London:Adam and CharlesBlack,
I973).
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 521

wheat.4 However, between 1870 and 1914, when Braziliancoffee and rubber
and Argentine prairie production had reached spectacular proportions of
world trade, althoughboth countrieswere tightlyknit into an English informal
empire, they were presidedover by elites who had been travelingto Paris as
often as possible for at least two generations,who spoke and often published
in French, who had read French texts in school and continued to admire
French letters in maturity, and who often learned of English culture and
achievement through French mediation.5In Argentina, for example, where
the cultural impact of England was, if anything, more strongly and directly
felt than in Brazil, the decision to found a jockey club-the epitome, of
course, of such emblematic aristocraticEnglish phenomena as horseracing
and the gentleman'sclub-was taken by four membersof the Argentineelite
at a Parisianrestaurantafter attendingthe Derby at Chantilly.6
The decision to look to Paris for a model of what a "moder" or "civilized"
city should be was thus taken in a Francophilehistorical milieu, but not,
however, only as a function of that milieu. For the planners and engineers
involved, this was also a choice informedby expertise and general assump-
tions about Haussmann'ssuccess.

HAUSSMANNIST SOLUTIONS
The man creditedwith the first set of reforms,Torcuatode Alvear, the Intend-
ente of Buenos Aires from I880 to I887,7 had taken the opportunityto study
the reformof Paris himself, just shortlybefore his tenure. The inspirationfor
his reforms is clearly Haussmannist,as is shown in his accomplishmentsin
which he set the tone for those who followed him. He began by destroyingthe
old buildings, considered "backward"and "shameful," which divided the
city's most prominent public square, the Plaza de Mayo; and he contin-

4 See Alan K. Manchester,British Preminence in Brazil

(ChapelHill: Duke UniversityPress,
1933): RichardGraham,Britain and the Onset of Modernizationin Brazil (Cambridge,England:
CambridgeUniversity Press, I972); Aldo Ferrer,TheArgentinaEconomy (Berkeley:University
of California Press, 1967), chs. 2,3 passim; A. G. Ford, "British Investment and Argentine
Economic Development, I880-1914," in David Rock, ed., Argentina in the TwentiethCentury
(Pittsburgh:University of PittsburghPress, I975).
5 The best evocation of this milieu in Argentina is in Thomas F. McGann, Argentina, the
United States, and the Inter-AmericanSystem 1880-I914 (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity
Press, 1957), chs. 1-4; see, also, Emesto Quesada, "Introducci6n,"in Miguel Cane, Notas e
impresiones(Buenos Aires: CulturalArgentina, 1918), passim; analysisof the Brazilianvariantis
in Needell's TropicalBelle Epoque.
6 McGann,Argentina, 51-52; one of the Argentinesinvolved was Miguel Cane (see below);
the Jockey Club in Paris dates from 1838, Rio's from i868, and Buenos Aires's from I88I.
7 See Adrian Beccar Varela, Torcuatode Alvear (Buenos Aires: G. Kraft, 1926); James R.
Scobie, Buenos Aires (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 109-II; cf. Charles S.
Sargent, The Spatial Evolution of GreaterBuenos Aires, Argentina, I870-1930 (Tempe:CLAS
Arizona, I974), 31.
522 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

ued with developing the proposal for, and first work on, the Avenida de
Mayo. He successfully completed the embellishmentof various parks and
plazas and widening and paving the majorthoroughfaresin the old center of
town. His successors, between the i88os and I9IO,oversaw the completion
of the Avenida de Mayo (1894) and graced the city with its Parisian-style
places carrefours,such as the Plaza de Congreso;a porteno renditionof the
Bois de Boulogne, the Parque3 de Febrero;as well as an operatheater,Teatro
Colon (I908), the Palacio de Congreso (1906), and the other noted echoes of
Haussmann'staste for monumentalBeaux-Artscityscape.8
In all of this, the Parisian image, readily apparentin the emphases on
demolition, perspectives, rationalizedarticulation,architecturalstyle, use of
monumentalbuildings and statuary,and parks and promenades, is clearly
identified in Alvear's correspondence.Althoughhe had studied in Paris him-
self, otherArgentinesfamiliarwith the city apparentlyhad the impressionthat
they were welcome to discuss, or even meddle in, his work.9One particularly
interestingcorrespondent,Miguel Cane, wrote to Alvear at length about the
project to improve Buenos Aires with detailed reference to Parisian suc-
cesses.10 Cane is noteworthybecause of his exemplarystatus in the Genera-
tion of 'Eighty, the generationof the Argentineelite who presided over and
directedtheir nation's turn-of-the-centurytriumphs.1 Anotherexplicit refer-
ence to Paris was providedby Domingo Sarmiento,the grandold man of the
Generationof 'ThirtySeven, the earlierelite generationthat had first urged a
Europhile,Liberalpathfor the Argentine.12Indeed, Alvear'sbiographercred-
its Sarmientowith providingthe initial inspirationfor Buenos Aires' reformin
journalisticreviews of the city writtenin i870.13
A similar choice of models is apparentin Rio de Janeiro.In fact, the case

8 Jose Juan Maroni, Breve historiafisica de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, 1969), 55; Beccar
Varela, Torcuato de Alvear, 9-30, 49-131, I95-244, 287-98, 309-12, passim; Albert B.
Martfnez, Baedeker of the ArgentineRepublic (Barcelona:R. Sopena, 1914), 157-8, map 2.;
Scobie, Buenos Aires; NB Maroni, Breve historicafisica, mentions Alvear's use of a French
architect, one Courtois, in his work.
9 See Beccar Varela, Torcuato de Alvear, 479-513. 10 Ibid., 479-92.
11 On the Generationof 'Eighty, see David W. Foster, The Argentine Generation of i88o
(Columbia: Missouri, I990); McGann, Argentina, chs.I-4; Jose Luis Romero, A History of
ArgentinePolitical Thought(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1963), 179-80; Paul Groussac,
Los que pasaban (Buenos Aires, 1939 [1919]); on Cane, Foster, Generation, 31-48; McGann,
Argentina, 47-48; ManuelGalvez, Recuerdosde la vida literaria, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, I96I),
I; ch.5, passim; Victoria, "Pr6logo,"in Miguel Cane, En viaje, (Buenos Aires, 1949 [ca. 1883]),
p. xxxvi; AugustinRivero Astengo, Hombresde la organizaci6nnacional (Buenos Aires, 1936),
I63-4, I65, 169-70; Ricardo Saenz Hayes, Miguel Cand y su tiempo (I85I-I905) (Buenos
Aires, 1954).
12 See Mrs. Horace Mann, "BiographicalSketch of the Author,"in Domingo F. Sarmiento,
Life in the ArgentineRepublicin the Days of the Tyrants(New York:Hafner-Macmillan,rpt. of
I868); Romero, Argentine Political Thought, ch.5:I84-5; David Rock, Argentina: 1516-1982
(Berkeley:California, I985), ch.4, passim; McGann,Argentina, 3-5, 34.
13 See Beccar Varela,Torcuatode Alvear, 14-15, 49-50; the articlesappearedin El Nacional,
signed by "D".
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 523

for Haussmannistinfluence on the reformthere is even more direct.14 At that

time (1902 to 1906), the city prefect was Francisco Pereira Passos, who as a
student at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees had witnessed the beginnings of
Haussmann'sGreat Works in the I85os. Moreover, during the same era as
Sarmiento was suggesting the need for Parisian reform of Buenos Aires,
PerieraPassos attemptedsuch a reformfor Rio. As an engineerattachedto the
Ministries of Agricultureand Empire in 1874, PereiraPassos had been en-
trustedwith conceiving and carryingout the city's metamorphosis.Research
has documentedthatnot only were explicitly Haussmannistproposalsmade to
him in his official capacity then but that he undertooka close study of Paris's
reforms througha private correspondencewith a friend based in Paris.15
The results, spelled out in the proposedplan that PereiraPassos published
at the time,16 are clearly Haussmannistand very ambitious, indeed; unhap-
pily, they were drawn up a generation too early. The era's financial and
political constraintsprovedoverwhelming, and the proposalscame to naught.
Only the city's majorpark, located at the Campode Santana,was Frenchified
into an allusion to its Parisian counterpart,the Bois de Boulogne; and that
reform, in fact, was under the hand of anotherman, a French landscapist,
Glaziou.17
Years later, when PereiraPassos was once more entrustedwith the task in
more positive circumstances, the now aged engineer simply put the most
practicalpartof the plans into effect. He was joined, this time, by a clique of
engineers entrustedwith building the city's port and three of the main thor-
oughfareslinked to the new port'squays. In theirwork, as in PereiraPassos's,
however, the derivationis clear.18
Once again, the lessons of Napoleon III's Prefet de la Seine are patent.
Demolishing old structures, creating new thoroughfares, widening and
straighteningold streets, and constructing monumentalbuildings and new
parks and places carrefourswere all typical motifs. More obviously, just as
the Argentinesdid with the Avenidade Mayo, the Braziliansgave theirreform
its centerpiece in a superbboulevardwith a perspectivegraced with architec-
tureborn of the Ecole des Beaux Arts:the AvenidaCentral(now, the Avenida
Rio Branco). In the Carioca case, the reform was largely completed under
Pereira Passos and his engineer colleagues by 1906. Although some of the
14 See
Jeffrey D. Needell, "Markingthe CariocaBelle Epoque Concrete,"Journal of Urban
History," Io:4 (August I984), 397-8, 400-3.
15 Ibid., and pp. 417-9. On Pereira Passos, see ibid., 383-4, 392, and, also, Needell,
TropicalBelle Epoque, 82-83, 86, and passim.
16 Francisco Pereira
Passos, JeronymoRodriguesde Moraes Jardim,e MarcellinoRamos da
Silva, Primeirorelatorio da Commissdode Melhoramentosda cidade do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de
Janeiro, I875), and, especially, Segundo relatorio. . . (Rio de Janeiro, 1876).
17 Needell, "CariocaBelle
Epoque,"398, 414. Auguste MarieFrancoisGlaziou (I833- 906),
favored by the Brazilianemperor,had already worked on various imperiallandscapingprojects
before this.
18 Ibid.,
400-3, 417-9.
524 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

most imposing buildings were not actually finished until later, such as the
Teatro Municipal [I909], the Biblioteca Nacional [I9IO], and the Palacio
Monroe [I9IO]), they, too, had been planned and designed with the rest.19
Rio's reformscomposed a set piece, brilliantlyand rapidlycompleted and
done very much in conscious competition with the earlier reform of the
Argentine capital.20The French terms of the competition seemed naturalto
those involved. Before his death, PereiraPassos was hailedby his countrymen
as the "BrazilianHaussmann";Alvear's handiworklaid the foundation for
porteiio claims to living in the "Parisof South America."21What they had
attemptedand achieved was obvious to them. The ideological context, the
reason for these attemptsand achievements,however, compels our curiosity.

LATIN AMERICAN PROBLEMS

By the turn of the centuryboth Argentinaand Brazil were directedby elites

who conceived the paths of their nationsas lying in the same direction. After
eras in which they thoughtthey had been held back by eithercolonial empedi-
ments and political distractionsor errors,these elites thoughtthey were about
to cross the universalthresholdof Civilization.
Miguel Cane, discussed earlier, suggests, in his personalview, the Argen-
tine variantof this phenomenon.The son of a memberof the Generationof
'Thirty-Seven,a statesmanand diplomat, a man of letters and a man of the
world, Cane was perceived by his contemporariesas one of the foremost
representativesof the dominant circle of the Argentine elite. His writing,
always directedtowardthat circle and the wider elite that it dominated, may
thus be taken as a useful sample of the ruling discourse. In them, one sees
what a succeedinggenerationwas to describeas the era's dominatingtheme of
materialdeterminism.22
Cane, like so many contemporariesin the Europeanworld, accepted the
scientism of the age and the vulgarpositivism that was so much a partof it.23
19 Ibid., Needell, TropicalBelle Epoque, 36-45; nota bene, as in the case of Buenos Aires,
not only Francophileengineers and planners were involved, but Frenchmen,especially in the
architecture.
20 See Joaode Barros,"Chronica,"Renascenca, i (June 1904), 124; Thomaz Lopes, "Buenos
Aires," K6smos, 5:3-4 (March-April, August I908), passim.
21 PereiraPassos was comparedto Haussmannmost famouslyby Jose Mariada Silva Paranhos
(Junior), baron do Rio Branco, the celebratedcontemporaryminister for foreign affairs (see
RaymundoA. de Athayde, PereiraPassos [Rio de Janeiro:A Noite, n.d.], 297); the comparison
between Buenos Aires and Paris is noted in both Sargent, GreaterBuenos Aires, 89, 119 and
Scobie, Buenos Aires, I I I, 113, I30. Sargent (p. 119-20) disputes the comparison on urbanistic
groundsthat could apply equally well to Rio.
22 For Cane and his representativequality,see note I I above. Most of his books are collections
of essays initially written at home or abroad for publication in porteno periodicals; see, for
example, Notas y impressiones,En viaje, and Discursos y conferencias.For the generalmaterial
determinismof Cane's generation,see CarlosIbarguren,La historiaque he vivido (Buenos Aires,
1955), 69, 20i.
23 On the
general Europeanmilieu, see H. StuartHughes, Consciousness and Society (New
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 525

Thus, when we read his responses to other Latin Americancountries and fit
them into the views he expressed on Paris and Argentina, we see something
like a positivist continuumof Progressand Civilization stretchingout before
us. Like so many of the Argentineelite, that is, he thoughtof Argentinaas the
leading exception to the Latinrule of materialand racial inferiority.Although
the CentralAmericannationsmightbe contemptuouslypointedto as "tropical
exuberances,"Argentinawas approachingparitywith Europe.It had resolved
the political problemsof both dictatorshipand civil strife, possessed a culti-
vated elite, was bound together by a modem infrastructure,boasted a great
port that had become the nexus for enormous volumes of commerce and
Europeanimmigration, and was continuouslybeing made richer by produc-
tion and capital investment.24
It was within this context of growth and cultivationthat the problemof the
national capital was perceived. If it was to be what every capital was-the
representativesymbol of its nation-it must conform to this elite perception
of "civilized"maturation.Buenos Aires mustcease to be a "greatvillage" and
reflect the national transformation.As it was completing its specific natural
evolutiontowardsthe universalgoal of Civilization, Argentinamustbe graced
by a city thatconformedto the universalurbanexperienceof Civilization. For
Cane and his peers, that universalmodel was Paris.25
The perceptionof the Frenchcapital is explicit in Cane's writing.26He was
well aware of the city's notoriety as the site of refined debauchery,but he
stressed, instead, its unique dominationof science, literature,and the fine

York:Random, 1958), pp. 31-32, 37-41; on much of its origins, see D. G. Charlton,Positivist
Thought in France During the Second Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I959), chs.
2,3,6,7, and pp. I90-99; Claude Digeon, La crise allemande de la pensee francaise (1870-
1914), (Paris: Presses Universit6de France, I959), chs. 4,5; on Latin America's rendition, see
Leopoldo Zea, Positivismin Mexico (Austin: Texas, 1974) and his Latin AmericanMind (Nor-
man: Oklahoma, I963); and, especially, CharlesHale, "Politicaland Social Thought,"in Leslie
Bethell, ed., Cambridge History, v.5, and Hale's The Transformationof Liberalism in Late
Nineteenth-CenturyMexico (Princeton:Princeton, I989).
24 See Cane, Discursos y conferencias,48-49; En viaje, 6-7, 9-I0, 11-12, 13, i6, 258, 275;
Notas y impressiones, 37-39, 41; Prosa ligera, 171. The comparisonwith CentralAmerica is
Roque Saenz Pefia's, later presidentof Argentina,and was made in a diplomaticspeech; on this
and general elite assumptionsin this regard, see Groussac, Los que passaban, 374-5, 383-5;
Groussac is quoted in MartinGarciaMerou, "Introducci6n,"in Cane, Prosa ligera, 17-I8, and
compareIbarguren,La historia, pp. 92-93 and chs. viii and ix, passim. Paul Groussac, it should
be noted, was a Frenchmanwho apparentlyattachedhimself to the Generationof 'Eighty as a
kind of cultural and historicalpublicist.
25 See
McGann, Argentina, ch. 4, passim and the correspondencecited in Beccar Varela,
Torcuatode Alvear, for example, 491-2, 506-13; see also the Scobie, Sargent, and Maroni
citations in note 21, above. The reference to Buenos Aires as a great village derives from the
novel by Lucio V. Lo6pez,La gran aldea (Buenos Aires, 1882), a lament for the passing of
traditionalBuenos Aires which was dedicatedto Miguel Cane, an old family friend. L6pez was a
memberof the Generationof 'Eighty and his father,like Cane's, was a memberof the Generation
of 'Thirty Seven.
26 See, for example, Notas y impressiones,52-53, 99, 100-3; En viaje, 46,
48-50, 62-63,
88.
526 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

arts. In fact, Cane identified the values of a universal civilization so closely

with the culture evident in Paris that when he thought that culture threatened
(by modem art or drama or by the modem proletariat, for example), he wrote
of it anxiously to Buenos Aires, as a common danger to all civilized people.27
Thus, the letters he wrote to Buenos Aires' intendente in the I88os take on
something of a larger dimension. The use of the Parisian model was rooted in
a world view of profound implications and signified a triumph of national
importance. In 1883, he made this clear, writing Alvear that
I wish to pay tributehere ... to the essentially progressiveman who with admirable
perseverenceis transformingthe Capitalof the Republicand placing it at the height of
the most brilliant European centers. Air for the lungs, lawns for play, space for
children, that royalty of New York, London, and Paris . . . a decorous aspect for the
tombs in which our lamenteddead repose, walks recommendedby hygiene and embel-
lished by art, new streets where deserts were yesterday,runningtoday between pal-
aces, the thoroughfaresmade easy by improving paving, and, above all, the trans-
mission to the public conscience of the facility born of progress, here, sir, is your
work, Intendente, and here your title to the profound admirationof your fellow
citizens.28

Moreover, in at least one lengthy, detailed letter, Cane clearly felt it both
appropriate and necessary, if Alvear was to undertake the city's "civilized"
reform, to make sure the planner got it right:

My repeatedvoyages and my long residence in Europe, esteemed sir, have permitted

me not only to establish comparisonsbetween Buenos Aires and the most numerous
cities I have visited, but also to realize the capitaldefects of ours and to fix in my mind
the modifications necessary, not only in present situations, but in future systems, in
orderto modify the city in the sense of the necessities of public healthand the demands
of aesthetics, which ought never to be neglected in works in which referenceto man is
made.29

After a suitable reference to Plato, Cane descended to list seven major vices of
the capital and then, in closely detailed arguments in which the example of
Paris dominates, with supporting evidence from London, Vienna, Berlin, and
New York, proceeds with a list of seven recommendations.30 After all, Civili-
zation was at stake.
In this context, it is interesting to note that Can6, although clearly pleased
with the city's reforms, was also paradoxically alarmed with the extent of the
changes. He became concerned that the city of his youth was disappearing too
completely:
27 Notas y impressiones, 235-44 and citations in Saenz Hayes, Miguel Cane, 493-5.
28 Miguel Cane to Torquatode Alvear, Buenos Aires, 7 June 1883, quoted in Beccar Varela,
Torquatode Alvear, 480.
29 Miquel Cane to Torcuatode Alvear, Vienna, 14 JanuaryI885, quoted in Beccar Varela,
Torquatode Alvear, 48 1-82.
30 Ibid., 483-92.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 527

We end up understandingthe serene, profoundand enduringimpressionof an old man

of Toledo, Florence or Siena, who lives and dies having always before his eyes the
same views that accompaniedthe life and death of his forefathers. ... at the risk of
being treatedas a barbarian,Kafir or Visigoth, I confess that it would please me very
much, on returningto my fatherland,to see some view from my childhood . . . that
would remind me of ... the glorious pages that sing in the memory of my first
years.31

But even in this bit of regretful nostalgia, the perspective in question is

clear. In making an excuse for his alarm and nostalgia, he refers to such
backward-looking attitudes as those of a "barbarian, Kafir or Visigoth." The
meaning of such words, strung together in this epoch of France's mission
civilisatrice, this noontide of the British Empire, is brutally clear. To resist the
Frenchification of one's city was to respond like a barbarian, an African or
medieval Spaniard-that is, like a racial and cultural inferior.
Neither Cane nor his generation did resist, and the results were as they had
hoped. The response of both Argentines and foreigners was gratifying, and
the reader may pardon extensive quotations here, for they best show the nature
of the public consciousness involved. They bespeak an admiration for an
Argentina now so clearly prepared for its role among the Great Powers. They
also suggest how much the city's reforms had been designed not only to
announce but also to help induce Argentina's emergence as a "civilized"
nation by the cultural impact of the reforms on the Argentines themselves.
One can begin, for instance, with the fourth edition of an English-language
Baedeker by an Argentine, which soberly intones that

it is beyond doubt that the opening of all these avenues, not only gives air and light to
quartersof the town which are very densely populated, but it also will very rapidly
change the topographicalaspect by radicallytransformingthe insufficientplan made
by the founder Garay. Besides these avenues the town possesses 97 parks, prom-
enades, plazas with a total area of 10,727,448 square metres. Some of the recently
constructedparks, such as the CentenaryPark of 20 hectares, the West Park of 5.6
hectares, the Olivera Park of 47.6 hectares, are, as much by their extent as by their
situation, beautiful public promenadeswhich will make an ornamentto the town of
Buenos Aires, following in that the example of the most progressive modernmetro-
poles. . . . The generalaspectof Buenos Aires presentsa fairly uniformphysiognomy,
due to the draughtof its plan and to the Spanish and Moorish style of its buildings.
Nevertheless, in certainquartersof the centre, as in the Avenidade Mayo, the Avenida
Quintana, the Avenida Alvear, the Calle Pueyrredonand others there is a moder
elegant aspect, like that of the most advancedtowns. The privateedifices, the luxu-
rious premises of the shops, the pavementsof asphalt,give to Buenos Aires the cachet
of the great metropolis.32

And at least some foreigners were apparently apt to agree: Here is the word
of a widely published French journalist, Jules Huret:

31 Cane, Notas e impressiones, 54. 32 Martinez, Baedeker, 157-9.

528 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

the first impressionone experiencesis thatof arrivingat a greatEuropeancity . . . all

[my impressionsof the city center], seen separatelyor all together,constitutethe great
European city, a mixture of the capitals and commercial metropolises of Europe.
Nothing typically native dissipates this impression.Whereare the gauchos that arrive
from the field, the beggers on horsebackand the dusty and gaudy Carmensthat one
imagined seeing? To what far district must one direct oneself to hear the open-air
serenadesat night?I saw nothinganywherebut elegant women with toilettes from the
Rue de la Paix and youths dressedin Piccadilly style, who promenadedin carriages.33

And an Englishman, W. H. Koebel, reported that

the greatest Europeantowns have nothing to display that would astonish the Argen-
tine. . . . [Althoughthe] streets in the centre of the town are for the most partfar too
narrowfor the traffictheybear. . . . The erroris being atonedfor in the laterenterprises.
The statelyAvenidade Mayo . . . is an instanceof this. With its spacious roadwayand
its broad sidewalks lined with plane trees, it is as imposing a thoroughfareas can be
imagined. The magnificent Avenida Alvear, too, which leads from the main city to
PalermoPark, is in some respects still more striking.The mansionswhich flank it are
interspersedby gardensandplazas, andthe broadavenuegains by the wealthof verdure
and flowers. ... Of [the clubs] . . . the three that are of most interest are the Jockey
Club, the Club de ResidentesEstranjeros,andthe EnglishClub. The JockeyClub is, in
one sense, thepremierof the three. Its house in the Calle Floridais of a grandeurdifficult
to match in the entire world of clubdom. Its staircase is justly celebrated, and the
decorationsand scheme of the rooms are nothing less than superb. .. .34

And his compatriot, W. A. Hirst, remarked:

It was not until the Presidencyof [Juarez]Celman that Buenos Aires took upon itself
the form worthy of a civilized capital. . . . Splendid public buildings were erected,
[parksbegan to be established],and many of the worst rookerieswere cleared out and
replacedby good streets. Above all, the Avenidade Mayo was made. These architec-
tural improvements,as is always the case, were most beneficial to public order and
safety, for narrow streets and decayed houses are nurseriesof crime. . . . Buenos
Aires began to rank as one of the world's pleasurecities. Haussmann,like Celman,
does not go down to posterity with an unspotted reputation, but few men in the
nineteenthcenturyhave had more influence upon the Latin race, for every builder in
South America, at least, has his head full of the Parisianboulevards,and every new
plan or renovationis on that model. . . . Every one admiresthe buildings of Buenos
Aires. The JockeyClub is probablyunsurpassedby any club buildingin the world, and
the Bolsa, or Exchange, is extremely stately. . . . the streets and shopperspresent a
fine spectacle;the architectureof the buildingsis sumptuousandthe pavementsare full
of life; there are long rows of splendid equipages, and beautiful women, daintily
attiredand bejewelled, flit from shop to shop as in all other capitals, and the pride of
wealth and luxury flaunts itself as bravely as in Paris or London.35

But the response of the portenios or other South Americans is even more to
the point. As early as 1883, at the end of Alvear's tenure, El Nacional, one of
the two most prestigious portefno newspapers, noted:
33 Jules Huret, De Buenos Aires al Gran Chaco (Paris:Fasquelle, n.d.), 44, 45.
34 W. H. Koebel, ModernArgentina (London:FrancisGriffiths, 1907), 38, 39-40, 55.
35 W. A. Hirst, Argentina
(London:T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 142-3, 146.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 529

He who was out of Buenos Aires these six years, on returning,is doubtless underthe
impression that he is in another, completely different city, from the harmony of its
buildings and its surprisingembellishment. ... He will see how its dirty, ruined
hospitals, its clinics which seemedjails, and its [public]buildingswhich were so many
objects of municipalshame, have turnedinto spacious and worthyhospitals, complete
with all scientific advances, clinics comfortableand attractive,public buildings set up
with rare order and beauty. And he will see, finally, how Buenos Aires has lost her
aspect of a great provincial town, being transformedinto a handsome and European
city.36

How pleasing a remedy it was to the malady of bad press discussed by Cand
earlier in one of his letters to Alvear: "Europe begins to speak of us, because
our progress is imposing: but it is sad that the tourist attracted by our fame,
might have the right to affirm on his return that nothing is more disagreeable
than the flat and common effect of our buildings, except perhaps the difficulty
of our traffic."37 Such a shameful situation was now in retreat, and journalists
waxed enthusiastic, as an article in the El Nacional noted:
What I see today is no longer the Buenos Aires I left a year ago. Here a new building,
there another, there still another; finance buildings, departmentstores, enormous
emporia, sumptuous palaces; and all this improvised, created overnight, a street's
appearance,a district's appearance,completely changed in the short space that sepa-
rates one year from another;the mean ruins of a centurybefore [being] buriedbeneath
the novelty and elegance of the present. It seems that the presentgenerationwants to
erase the tracksof the past, smotheringmiserableold constructionunderthe sumptu-
osity of this unclassifiablemodernarchitecture,with its diverse classical orders, only
uniform in sharing the trim elegance and symmetryof an eclecticism in which good
taste at every point and in every detail stands out.38

Obviously, the city was attaining "the quality of decoration, hygiene, and
traffic that both the size of its population and the level of progress and wealth
we have reached demand."39
The perceptions and preoccupations of many elite Brazilians were rather
similar to those of the Generation of 'Eighty and their exemplar, Cane. The
original I87os attempt to reform Rio, the Court of the Empire of Brazil, had
failed, as noted, but had taken place in an era of imperial reform designed to
realize the Empire's modernization within its rather conservative monarchical
structure.40 The city thus remained an especially painful and provocative
36 Quoted in La Nacidn, 8 May I883, quoted in Beccar Varela, Torquatode Alvear, 552.
37 Can6 to Alvear, Vienna, 14 JanuaryI885, quoted in Beccar Varela, Torquatode Alvear,
481.
38 Sans6n Carrasco, Montevideo, 9 June [I885?], quoted in Beccar Varela, Torcuato de
Alvear, 499, 504.
39 FranciscoSeeber to Alvear, London, 29 July I886, in Beccar Varela, Torcuatode Alvear,
506.
40 See Joaquim[Aurelio Barreto]Nabuco [de Araujo], Um estadista do imperio, 3 vols. (Rio
de Janeiro:Garier, I899), 111:202-68, 364-438, passim; Needell, TropicalBelle Epoque, 3I;
Roderick J. Barman, "The Brazilian Peasantry Reexamined," Hispanic American Historical
Review, 57:3 (August 1977), 411-2, 414-5, 422-3; cf. Richard Graham, "Brazil after Indepen-
530 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

reminderof a failure to arrive at Civilization or Progress for thirty years.

Indeed, therewere other, failed attemptsto rectify one aspector anotherof the
city's "colonial"infrastructureand appearancein the i89os, when the national
political structurewas recast as a republic and sentiments of rebirth were
common in the newly christenedCapitalFederal.The problemswent beyond
the poor articulationof thoroughfaresor the sorry appearanceof the city's
traditionalarchitecture;its reputationas a pesthole was also a threatto the city
and nation's European reputationin an era that coveted immigration and
investment.41
Unlike Argentina,the Brazil thatemergedat the turnof the centurydid not
have a generationof the elite that spoke with anything like one voice. The
generationin question was divided by regional questions and political solu-
tions in a way foreign to their Argentine counterparts,who had seen one
fraction triumph dramaticallythrough war (I880) and stymied revolution
(I890). Still, althoughthe Brazilianelite lacked the unity of purposeclear in
the Generationof 'Eighty, some sense of consensus aboutthe nation's direc-
tion and its government'srole had emerged by I898 after considerablevio-
lence and struggle and would endure, despite various violent attacks, until
I930. Its palmy days were precisely those between I898 and I9I0, when
Rio's reform was again pushed to the fore of the nationalagenda and finally
realized.42
Thus, despite the intra-eliteconflicts suggested, the same vulgar positivist
assumptionsnoted for Argentineswere broadlyacceptedamong the Brazilian
elite.43 Indeed, the perspective at play here can be obtained by a broader
sampling. For the sake of the discussionhere, however, a certainfocus will be
more efficient. Let us turn, then, to the man who undertookRio's reform, to
another who presided over the city's metamorphosis,and to a third, who
celebratedwhat was done (and undone).
As a reformer,PereiraPassos had a vision that was a simplerversion than

dence," in Leslie Bethell, ed., CambridgeHistory, IV:792. The reformswere undertakenby the
administrationof Jose Mariada Silva Paranhos,viscountdo Rio Branco;the most famous reform,
the Law of the Free Womb (I871), attackedslavery.
41 Needell, "CariocaBelle Epoque," 398-400.
42 On Brazilianelite divisions, consensus, and the reforms, see Needell, TropicalBelle Epo-
que, 1-22; Jeffrey D. Needell, "The Revolta Contra Vacina," Hispanic American Historical
Review,67:2 (May 1987), 24I-9; JosephL. Love, Rio Grandedo Sul and BrazilianRegionalism
1882-1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971) and his Sao Paulo in the Brazilian
Federation, 1889-1937 (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, I980); the companion studies of
RobertM. Levine (for Pernambuco)andJohnD. Wirth(for MinasGerais), and Afonso Arinosde
Melo Franco,RodriquesAlves, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro:Jose Olympio, I973). On Argentina'selite
unity, see McGann,Argentina,chs. 1,3; Rock, Argentina1516-1982, 120-31, 183-9I, passim;
and Douglas W. Richmond, Carlos Pellegrini and the Crisis of the ArgentineElites, 1880-1916
(New York:Praeger, I989).
43 See JeffreyD. Needell, "Rio de Janeiroat the Turnof the Century,"Journal of Interameri-
can Studiesand WorldAffairs, 25:I (August 1984), 91-93; Needell, TropicalBelle Epoque, 5, 6,
20-21, 182-3, I98-9.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 531

that of more literary Can6's, although they had much in common. As one
might expect of a European-trainedengineer, Pereira Passos'aspirationto-
wards both Progress and Civilization is also clear, althoughin a much more
practical light. From the I870s, PereiraPassos's correspondenceshows the
same scientistic, Eurocentricset of assumptions.He worked hard as a youth
to bring both industry and urban reform to Brazil, and his perception of
Europeand Brazil suggests a man patrioticallyimpatientto narrowa gap that
he felt unnecessaryand shameful. It was this old man's patriotismto which
the presidentof his countryappealedin the invitationto tackle Rio's problems
once again.44The engineer'ssense of the necessity of reformhad not dimmed;
indeed, it remainedframedwithin the perspectiveof the I870s, and, thus, is
similarto Can6's. It is suggested in one of his most famous phrases, in which
he gave a characteristicallysuccinct sense of the necessity of the task before
him: Rio, he charged, was infamous for "old ways which, in many cases,
deny to the city not only the dignity of a capitalbut thatof a simple habitatof
a civilized people."45The point was clear. A people's claims to Civilization
and Progresswere preeminentlyassociatedwith its premiersymbol-its capi-
tal. A barbaric, "colonial" Rio denied Brazil its pretensions to "civilized"
stature.
Anotherexemplarof the perspectivein question can be found in the work
and words of the presidentresponsiblefor Rio's reform, [Franciscode Paula]
Rodrigues Alves. A statesman in both the national and local arenas,
RodriguesAlves had served the monarchyand the republicalike and thus had
spent a good deal of time in the port capital of the country. He had also
suffered from the city's problems, having lost a daughterto Rio's yellow
fever. But he had not accepted such problemspassively. Although a man of
rural,conservative, slaveholdingantecedents,like many in the Brazilianelite
of the late nineteenth century, he accepted the broaderassumptions of Eu-
ropean liberalism. His life demonstratesthe attempt to bring the fruits of
North Atlantic civilization to Brazil without destroyingthe hierarchicalsoci-
ety over which he and the membersof the elite presided.46
Although RodriguesAlves had never visited the North Atlantic world him-
self, like PereiraPassos, he obviously believed in the necessity of attacking
Brazil's problems with that world's weapons. His identificationof Brazil's
problems, of course, was limited by the biases of his background.As both a
paulista planterand a statesmanwith long experience in the nation's govern-
ing circles, he was keenly aware of Rio's centralityfor the nation. He knew
how much the image and the facilities of the nation's capital, greatest urban
44 Needell, "CariocaBelle Epoque,"397, and the correspondencecited in notes 30 and 31 (p.
414) and note 32 (p. 416), passim. On PereiraPassos' appointmentin 1902, see the sources cited
there in note 34 (p. 416).
45 Quoted in Luis Edmundo [da Costa], O Rio de Janeiro do meu tempo, 5 vols. (Rio de
Janeiro: Conquista, 1957), I:25.
46 See Melo Franco,
RodriquesAlves, especially Vol. I, passim.
532 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

center, and main port, meant for the immigrants and financial credit crucial to
paulista coffee production and the economy in general.47 Thus, in the speech
setting forth the program of his administration, Rodrigues Alves made clear
the primacy of Carioca reform and the rationale behind it:
To animateimmigration,agriculture,industry,and tradeis the chargewisely attributed
by the constitutionallegislatorto the generalpowers of the Republic. ... I must add
now with the greatest conviction that the idea of immigrationis linked to that of the
cleansing of this Capital, which contains the best elements for constituting itself a
powerful focus of attractionfor labor and capital. No propagandafor this end will be
effective and our efforts will be poorly taken advantage of or lost if this work of
cleansing is not confronted-a problem of the greatest relevance with respect to
administrationand of the most elevated importancewith respectto the great moral and
materialinterests of our fatherland.48

Again, one notes that the president apparently did not comment on the
actual implementation of Rio's reform; it seems that in his mind, as in others',
the Parisian model was assumed to be the means to his end. When, years later,
the ex-president enjoyed a European tour and saw the City of Light himself
for the first time, he only remarked that he wished he had promoted a wider
central boulevard in Rio.49
A third exemplar might be found in Olavo [Bras Martins dos Guimarfes]
Bilac.50 Bilac's perspective is very useful because it is, perhaps, more deeply
felt. The reasons are clear in his biography. Unlike the prefect charged with
Rio's reform or the president who made it possible, Bilac was actually born in
Rio. He understood more viscerally what was at stake-what was being
remade in the public space and public consciousness. Raised within a short
walk from one of the centers of Afro-Brazilian culture, Bilac was the son of a
physician and himself a student at Rio's School of Medicine. His decision to
leave such training, as well as his subsequent departure from the halls of
Brazil's Faculties of Law, are ascribed to his passion for Parnassian poetry.
For our purposes, however, the professional biases of his family and school-
ing are of a piece with his avocation as a litterateur. In every case, they (and
his regular voyages to the French capital) brought Parisian influence and
paradigms to bear on his perspective.
As an established poet and journalist who was made the official spokesman
for the reform of Rio, Bilac used his columns in two of the capital's most
respected periodicals to champion Rodrigues Alves's urban program. Unlike
Can6, he showed not the slightest hesitation in destroying the city of his
47 Ibid, 1:73-166, 168-71, I90-I, 307-I2; and the other sources cited in Needell, "Carioca
Belle Epoque," note 34 (p. 416).
48 Quoted in "Banquete," Jornal do Comercio, 24 October 1901, p. 2.
49 See Melo Franco, Rodriques Alves, vol. 1:324.
50 See Eloy Pontes, A vida exuberantede Olavo Bilac, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro:Jose Olympio,
I944) and Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, 48-49, I90, 200-3, 224.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 533

childhood-much the reverse. When the demolition necessary to building the

Avenida Central took place, Bilac trumpeted the occasion from the fashion-
able pages of K6smos thus:
A few days ago, the picks, intoning a jubilant hymn, began the work of the Avenida
Central'sconstruction,knocking down the first condemnedhouses. ... we begin to
stride toward our rehabilitation.In the collapse of the walls, in the crumblingof the
stones, in the pulverizationof the earth, there was a long groan. It was the sad and
lamenting groan of the Past, of Backwardness,of Shame. The colonial city, filthy,
backward,obstinatein its old traditionswas weeping. . . . But the clear hymn of the
picks . . . [was] chanting, in their unceasing, rhythmicclamor, ... the victory of
hygiene, good taste, and art!51

The "Old Portuguese Bantustan," as Bilac called Rio,52 was being remade
French and European by a war on a shameful and barbaric past of "colonial"
filth and "African" degradation. As his colleague, the writer, Figueiredo
Pimentel, put it so memorably, "Rio is civilizing itself."53
As with Buenos Aires, the response to Rio's reform was heartening to its
Frenchifiers. As intended, the elite had the gratifying sense of living in a
respectably European environment. Postcards of the capital's new boulevards
and monumental public and private buildings were popular, and the impact on
public consciousness both expected and forthcoming.54 As one journalist put
it:
The wide and extended streets, the broad gardened plazas, the tall and beautiful
buildings, the varied diversions of simple pleasure or of intellectual enjoyment that
necessarily accompany these transformationsof the milieu in which the populace is
living, ought to modify its habits, influence its character,activateits initiative, awaken
in it the taste for the beautiful,the cult of the ideal, the love thattranslatesinto patriotic
acts, not platonic, rhetoricallove.55

Here, again, in another's opinion is the sense of what Rio's new Avenida
Central was to accomplish for the European visitor:
For those who meditate . . . on the past and futureof the Fatherland,the opening of
this street is of an extraordinaryimport, not only for the greatermaterialgrandeurof
this city, but for its greater moral grandeur.And, as Rio de Janeirois the center of
Brazilian progress and civilization, and, as it is by it that all Brazil is judged, the
Avenida Central, representingcomfort, hygiene, opulence will convince those who

51 "Chronica," Kosmos, I (March I904), 2.

52 Quoted in Luis Edmundo
[da Costa], De um livro de mem6rias, 5 vols. (Rio de Janeiro:
Nacional, I958), I;I62.
53 Quoted in Brito
Broca, A vida literdria--9oo (Rio de Janeiro:Jose Olympio, 1975), 4.
This celebratedphrase caught the imaginationof contemporaries,not least because Figueiredo
Pimentel, a very powerful fashion columnist, commanded widespread elite attention (see
Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, 126-7, I69-70, 2Io).
54 See Ibid.,
36-51.
55 J. C. de Mariz Carvalho, "PulcherrimaRerum,"K6smos, I
(September I904), 4.
534 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

have never been here and make only assumptionsas to what we are . . . that Brazil is
not what they have been told.56

Whether the edifying, European shift in perspective actually took place is,
of course, impossible to measure, except by a modern survey. One memoir
does affirm that
the city slowly began to change. New immigrationbegan to head here. New and
numerous,augmentingour populationconsiderablyand, above all, diminishingenor-
mously the numberof blacks. . . . There were transformationseven in our usages and
customs. ... We changed everything, until we came to change, completely, our
mentality, hobbled by long years of stubborn self-absorption and routine....
Rio . . . was being civilized, indeed!Progress,which hadhoveredaboutthe door for a
long time, without permissionto enter, was welcomed joyously.57

Indeed, we could also (as we did for Buenos Aires) sample the impact on
travellers,58 but the result would simply be the same: the natives' success at
Frenchification would be confirmed. As one might expect, the contemporaries'
correspondence, journalism, and memoirs, whether of tourists or natives,
converge in both Rio and Buenos Aires. The response of the portefios and
Cariocas of the time, however, are understandably more exuberant. They dis-
play a national pride, European prejudice, and Francophile self-congratulation
that elbow one another in unrestrained excitement at the seemingly miraculous
(that is, rapid and successful) advent of such clear sophistication.59
In both South American cities, then, one sees that both the problems and
the solutions have the parallel that Romero suggests. The problems were cities
inadequate to the needs and aspirations of elites who saw themselves suc-
cessfully presiding over nations newly entering the ranks of civilized nations;
the solutions were Haussmannist urban reform. The results, as traced out to
this point in the analysis, were public spaces of Parisian inspiration and public
consciousness successfully seduced into a Europhile euphoria. Words such as
seduced and euphoria, however, suggest the concerns of the conclusion to this
examination. For, to stop here would be to leave the reforms as their authors
intended-at the level of successful statements of achieved civilization. Both

56 "A Avenida Central,"Rua do Ouvidor, 20 SeptemberI904, I.

57 Costa, De um livro de memorias, 1:162-3.
58 See, for
example, Paul Adam, Les visages du Bresil (Paris: PierreLafitte, 1914); Alured
GrayBell, TheBeautifulRio de Janeiro(London:William Heinemann, I914); JosephBurnichon,
S. J., Le Bresil au pays de l'or et des diamants(Paris:Aillaud, Alves, I9IO); Reginald Lloyd,
dir., Impressoesdo Brazil no seculo vinte (London:Lloyd's GreaterBritain, I913).
59 We have seen the porteio response above; for more of the Carioca, see Needell, "Carioca
Belle Epoque,"403-1 0, passim. Note especially thatmore sensitive contemporarieswere uneasy
with these Europhilemetamorphoses:Men of letters, in particular,registeredboth critical dis-
tance and nostalgia. See, for example, for Buenos Aires, Francisco Grandmontagne,Teodoro
Foronda (I896); Lopez's La Gran aldea (cited earlier);or Julian Martel [pseudonymfor Jose
Maria Miro], La bolsa (1891). For Rio, see Needell, "Rio de Janeiro,"94-97, and some of the
essays in Joao do Rio's Psychologia urbana (I91I) or Vida vertiginosa (1911), or [Afonso
Henriquesde] Lima Barreto'sMorte e vida de M. J. Gonzaga de Sd (1919), and so forth.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 535

Romero's observationsand a more penetratingstudy of the achieved reform

go deeper and thus shed light on the bases of such reforms.In eithercase, they
point to a selfwilled fantasy of Civilization, the necessary complement of a
neocolonial elite's triumph.

MASKS BECOME FACES

The two foci to be taken up here both involve the idea of fantasy:one is the
bias in the efforts to make certainpublic space associated with elite interests
reflect an identificationwith Europeanculture;the other, the corresponding
bias evident in the privatespace of the elite. WhatI have in mind is examining
the reality of, and reasons for, an elite decision to create a facade of Europea-
nization and then live within it, to the point of making the public's space
privateand the elite's privatespace a public statement.Here, in otherwords, I
attempt to make something of Romero's allusion to clubs and restaurants
where one might nourish illusions of achieved Parisianstatus, in defiance of
the incomplete natureof the reforms of one's city.
In both Buenos Aires and Rio, the reformsconcentratedon the public space
associated with the state, neocolonialcommerce, tourism,and Europhilehigh
culture. It was, in effect, a selective Europeanizationfor the benefit of the
Europhileelite and representativesof theirNorthAtlanticcounterparts.In the
Argentinecapital, for example, the emphasisof the Ecole des Beaux Arts was
brought to bear on the main avenues of the old center, monumentalpublic
buildings concerned with governmentand the arts, and the area aroundthe
new port works and railheadto the northof the center,beyond which stretched
the new, chic district of the elite, the Barrio del Norte. In the Brazilian
capital, Beaux-Arts architecturegraced one public space in particular,the
Avenida Central,which extendedfrom the end of the avenuewhich linked the
quays, throughthe old city center,to yet anotheravenue, this one being linked
to the fashionable suburbs of the South Zone. Again, the buildings of the
Avenidacelebratedneocolonial commerce, tourism,opera, the fine arts, liter-
ature, government, and the like.60
This select Europeanizationwas more markedstill in the fashionableresi-
dential districts of the elite and the foreigners. The Barrio del Norte, or the
Zona Sul to which I refer above very much coincided with the hegemony of
Argentina'sGenerationof 'Eighty or the Brazilianplanterand political elites
of the era of coffee's first triumphs(I850 to I914). In both capitals, the elite
had formerly lived aroundcity center, which, in turn, was close to the port
which had, of course, been each city's cradle. Now, the elite increasinglyleft
their Neoclassical- and colonial-style homes for the Beaux-Arts hotels that
French and French-trainedarchitectsbuilt for the elite in the new districts.

60 For the
Argentine case, see Sargent, Greater Buenos Aires, 21-25, 89, 120; Scobie, Buenos
Aires, 110-22, 125-35. For the Brazilian, Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, 26, 36-45, 151-3.
536 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

The latter were attractiveas refuges from perceived health hazards of the
center and as new areas in which largerhomes could be built.61
There were, of course, differences of historical origin that might be re-
marked in passing. The Barrio del Norte, after all, having begun after a
cholera outbreak in the I87os and being perceived as convenient for the
city's men of affairsbecause it was close to the infrastructure
recentlybuilt up
after I880, was relatively new. Both phenomenapoint to recent events and
suggest the associationbetween the Argentineelite in questionand a specific
period of time. The year I880, the readermay recall, representedthe consol-
idation of one fraction of the Argentine elite over another. Re-affirmedin
I890, this consolidationwas accomplishedthrougha violent rupturewith the
still more violent, unstable, ongoing civil strife of the era following mid-
century.62
The Zona Sul's history suggests something of the distinct history of the
Carioca elite. In many ways, this group had ratherporous barriers. It was
made up of gentler accretionsover time, in a more continuousmanner. Al-
though economic shifts might affect its membership,political changes (which
were rather fewer than in Argentina, in any case) rarely did. The elite's
suburbanresidentialpatternswere of a gradualsort as well and stretchedback
to the era when Rio was the actualseat of the Portuguesecourt-in-exile(i 808
to 1822).63
This longer pattern of the elite's residence in the suburbs explains the
apparentmaterialdifference between Barrio del Norte and Zona Sul, with
respect to proximity to the center of each city. It is not that Rio's elite was
terriblydissimilarfrom theirporteniocounterparts-they, too, demandedeasy
access to the center of wealth and power. Rather,the peculiarhistory of the
city had made such access increasinglydifficult. Initially,they had also built
their new residences within, and then (as more land was reclaimed from
marshyterrain)to the northof the Old City. But thathad been in the century's
first two quarters.By the i86os, the shift of the dock areafrom the east to the
north, the growthof bureaucracyand commerceand the beginnings of indus-

61 For Buenos Aires, see Scobie, BuenosAires, I I4-135; Sargent,GreaterBuenos Aires, 23-
25, 79-82; for Rio, Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, 23, 26, I41-3,
I5I-3. Note especially that
Scobie refers to the Neo-Classical as "Italianesque,"pointingto the importanceof Italiansin the
decoration of elite housing of the mid-nineteenthcentury. My own research indicates that,
whethercarriedout by Italiansor no (and, in Rio, just as in Buenos Aires, it often was), the style
derived from Paris's Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
62 See Scobie, Buenos Aires, and ch. 3, passim; Sargent,GreaterBuenosAires, 21-25; for the
elite's political travails, see chapter3 in Scobie's Buenos Aires and the McGann, Richard, and
Rock citations in note 42 above.
63 See Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, 19-22, chs. 2,3 especially 117-24, I51-3. Note
especially that the intra-elitedifferences observed earlier turned on regional conflicts and the
natureof the nationalgovernment'srole-the Cariocaelite, unlike the portefio, did not partici-
pate in these strugglesso much as it functionedas the post-consensus,consecratedcircle of those
who triumphedin such conflicts.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 537

try, the ease of expansion towards the flat and increasinglydrainednorthern

area, the correspondingdemographicexpansion of the urbanmiddle sectors
and the laboringpoor, and, finally, the multipliereffect of the railheadestab-
lished there by that decade, had all made the area increasinglycrowded and
declasse. Even then, the elite had, in fact, remaineduntilmid-centuryas close
as an easy ride by carriage or litter to the docks. Then, however, public
transportationdeveloped to the point that suburbanresidence in the more
distant southernbeach region became practical.Thus, the southernmigration
of elite residence would have been possible only because of the convenience
of public transportation,first by regularcoaches, then, after 1867, by street-
car (bond), which then reclaimed beach after beach of the Zona Sul from
remote villas and small farms in the decades following mid-century.64
Havingnoted these dissimilarities,one is still compelledto stressthe essen-
tial similarity in the statementthat each elite residential district made and
intended. Each districtwas a sector of privateresidencesthat made the same
announcementas did the urbanreforms of each city's public spaces. Each
announcedthe identificationwith Europeof its respective elites. In both the
architectureof their residences and the facades of their great public buildings
and boulevards, these turn-of-the-centuryLatin Americans deftly defined
themselves within the confines of Civilization and Progress. There, or in the
Club del Progresso, the Jockey Club, or anotherfashionablespot modeled on
London or Parisianantecedents,these elites could easily imagine themselves
in Europe. After all, everythingin such places was shippedover from the Old
World, except for the Argentinesand the Braziliansthemselves. Triumphant
within such an ambience-one that successfully surroundedthem at home,
work, or recreation-the fantasy of being a part of Europe was secure. The
metropolitanidentity,centralto one's raison d'etre, was unchallengedby the
contradictionof location as far as the eye could see. The mask had become
fixed on the flesh beneath it.
AN EXCLUSIVE PUBLIC AND ITS CONSCIOUSNESS

If the elites used their reformof public and private spaces to adroitly define
themselves in a fantasy of Europe, they also defined many out. Neither city
was entirely Frenchifiedalong Haussmann'slines, nor were all public spaces
or private residences made over in Beaux-Arts style. The elites directed
reformsthat improvedthe lives of the elite and, to a certainextent, the middle
sectors. The poor in either capital were ignored or, in the interest of greater
articulationor hygiene, had their rights or interests trampledupon. In each
capital, the problem of housing for the mass of urban dwellers worsened
desperately during this era; tenements and shantytowns, present since the
century's third quarter, served a burgeoning population without benefiting
from a matchinggrowth of additionalconstruction.The impact on health can
64 Ibid., 22-26,
I5I-3.
538 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

be imagined. The new concern for urbanhygiene typical of a modern urban

consciousness was also all too clearly restrictedby the elite's narrowlycon-
ceived interests. Indeed, the disease control that was so prominenta part of
Rio's reform, for example, was directedat the sort of malady that terrorized
elite and poor alike or might dissuade the immigrant-plague, yellow fever,
smallpox. Tuberculosiswent on its slow, hidden task of decimation without
attention.In Buenos Aires, disease control was both ineffective and brutalin
its effects, with regulations poorly enforced and evictions mandated only
occasionally. Progress in the Argentine capital occurred only incidentally,
when, at turnof the century,sewage and garbagecollection improvedat city
center because the elite's business and culturalinterestshappenedto coincide
with the residentialarea of the city's poorest.65
In more symbolic terms, the impactof the reformsand the statementsof the
elite residentialdistricts are manifest. Both elites constructedpublic spaces
directedtowardsthemselves and the foreigntourists,diplomats,andbusiness-
men. The elites' definition was, at least to present sensibilities, a rather
contradictorysense of the wordpublic, althoughit was similarto the European
world's much morerestrictednotionof the wordsociety in the recentpast. The
Brazilianelites' notion of the word public was clearly exclusive. They made
such public spaces, in effect, privatespaces, by defining the public space and
consciousness of their concern along lines restrictedby wealth and Europhile
culture. The greatmass of their countrymenwere simply excluded. It was not
thatthey were ignored;rather,they were pushedaside or even attacked.In Rio,
for example, poor people were often forced out of the repaired or newly
constructedthoroughfaresin the Old City because much of their housing was
demolished,police increasedtheirharrassment,andshabbycommerceor Afro-
Brazilian culture were forbiddenthere. The poor people interferedwith the
elite's fantasyof civilizationandso hadto be hiddenaway in the Afro-Brazilian
slums nearthe docks and on the hills, in the Zona Nota.66In Buenos Aires, the
poor were condemnedto the decayingold centertenementsbecause they could
not affordto pay the cost of rent and transportationto live anywhereelse and

65 For Buenos Aires, see Sargent, GreaterBuenos Aires, 31-33, 65, 82, 83, 85-89; Scobie,
Buenos Aires, 135-59. For Rio, see Needell, "RevoltaContra Vacina,"249-62 and, on disease
among the Cariocapoor, Samuel Adamo, "TheBrokenPromise"(Ph.D. disser., HistoryDepart-
ment, Universityof New Mexico, 1983), ch.4, and Nilson do RosarioCosta, "Estadoe politicas
de saude p6blica (1889-1930)" (M. A. thesis, InstitutoUniversitario de Pesquisas do Rio de
Janeiro, 1983). Note especially that, to the credit of both Alvear and Pereira Passos, each
attemptedto carry out rationalsystems of housing reform and constructionto benefit the poor;
neither,however, was able to arrangefor sufficientbackingto make an effective difference. The
need for drastic solutions to demographic problems is clear in the population figures. The
populationof Buenos Aires increasedmore than sixfold in just 40 years, growing from 187,00
(1870) to 547,000 (1890) to 1,314,000 (1910); the populationof Rio increasedover threefoldin
36 years from 235,000 (1870) to 523,000 (1890) to 8 I,000ooo
(906). My sources are Sargent,
Greater Buenos Aires, 120; Needell, TropicalBelle Epoque, 241.
66 Needell, "RevoltaContra Vacina";Needell, "CariocaBelle Epoque," 406-10.
 PUBLIC SPACE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LATIN AMERICA 539

were held there to a drearylife of sweated laborand domestic misery punctu-

ated by police repression. Only after I900, when, increasingly, they could
affordtransportationor even suburbanmortgages,did they escape to disperse
in the shacks and cheap little houses of the growing peripherybarrios.67In
both capitals, the result was effectively identical-public spaces graced by
Parisianreform were ipso facto, not intendedfor the unsightly poor.
For the residential districts of the elite, the statementwas the same, al-
though it was carriedout by a kind of reversal:Privatebecame public. In both
cities, the old centers had been typically characterizedby elite and poor
dwellings alike: The shops and offices and streets and marketsfrom which
both groups earned their living were combined. One's status was relatively
discreet in domestic expression. Indeed, architecturally,there might be little
differencein appearancebetween that of the rich and the poor; in the earliest
phase of the tenements, after mid-century,such dwellings were often merely
the elite's old town houses subdividedto realize greaterprofits. Wealthwas
manifestwithin the home, with one's domestic way of life. It was outside and
away from the home, in one's personal dealings with peers or inferiors, in
one's appearanceat church or governmentfunctions, or in one's means of
transport,that one's place in society was clear. In public, a block of wealthy
homes might jostle a block of converted townhouses; and both would be a
short walk from the hurly-burlyof the port-capital'scommon life.68
In the era of our concern, all that was ebbing away; the rich were awash
with ostentation.Now, they wantedto constructEuropeanpreservesto main-
tain identificationwith theirfantasyof a Civilizationunsulliedby LatinAmer-
ican architectureor the poor. Of course, this meantthat the privateresidences
making up such districtswere anythingbut privatein visual impact. Physical
distance and wealth had createdthe necessary separationto allow for cultural
distinction and an overbearingproclamationof public station. Homes were
expressly designed to make manifest their owners' status in this neocolonial
milieu, and so the elite could announcethis status throughthe expense and
taste of their European mansions. And the cultural and economic logic is
clear:Theirdesire and ability to identify with the neocolonialmetropolemade
their position in the neocolonial colony patent.
WealthyBraziliansand Argentinesperceived themselves as the champions
of nationalprogress. We can also see them as agents of metropolitancultural
and economic penetration.The word neo-colonialexpresses the contradictory
natureof the phenomenonto which it refers. It suggests both the new and old
bonds of colonialism. It also refers to the kind of colonialism typical in the
third world in the era after post-colonialism, a dependency and control be-
tween metropolisand colonies in which no formal (thatis, political) domina-
67 Scobie, Buenos Aires,
135-59 and ch. 5, passim; Sargent, GreaterBuenos Aires.
68 Scobie, Buenos Aires, 114-5, 146-8; Needell,
Tropical Belle Epoque, 152-3; Needell,
"RevoltaContra Vacina,"252-2.
540 JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

tion is presentbecause it has been overthrownand less straightforwardforms

of domination(economic, cultural,ideological, military)have taken its place.
Something of neo-colonialism's contradictory,less straightforwardnature
often seems to touch all of the complex relationswhich it subsumes. Cultural
neo-colonialism is perhapsthe most slippery. These pages suggest just how
much this can be so. It is concernedwith a reformof public space and public
consciousness that was actually a reform of private space and private con-
sciousness. It narratesthe attainmentof Civilizationand Progresswhich was
really the assimilationof Frenchand English norms. It demonstrateshow the
achievementof nationalgreatnesswas signalledby way of a cosmopolitande-
nationalizationof urban form and expression. It centers on the works of
nationalelites whose self-legitimizationentailed successful replicationof the
style and achievementsof foreignelites. It indicatesthe ways in which a city's
face can be read like an open book for culturaland political hopes and fears.