Goiânia-Go: A City-Garden Project that has not Resisted to the Forces of Progress

Abstract

Using the comparative historical method in an interdisciplinary perspective, mainly by the dialogue of history, urbanism, architecture, landscaping and education the present article intends to make, besides discussions about environmental preservation, sustainability and quality of life in an urban environment, to understand how the inhabitants of the city have been changing their way of relating to the natural environment over the years. Goiânia was conceived and designed to be, besides a city planned in the architectural style of garden cities, the future capital of Goiás that was born approached the principles of a sustainable urbanization that sought to maintain the balance between nature, economy and society. Using a varied documentation - plan and master plan elaborated by Atílio Corrêa Lima, aerial photo records, maps of the areas destined to parks and forests, urbanistic projects and master plans, urban report, population data, urbanization plans of neighborhoods, maps of legal and illegal subdivisions - the article intends to show that the construction project of Goiânia devised by Atílio Corrêa Lima presented an interaction between the city, man and nature by allocating ample spaces for the construction of squares, gardens and green areas for leisure, in view also, the preservation of natural resources essential to a city that could house up to 50 thousand inhabitants. However from 1950 the rural exodus provoking the expansion of the agricultural frontier to the Center-West led to an accelerated and disorderly expansion of Goiania, and consequently, the expansion of the urban fabric into the areas that should be of conservation and preservation.