Organizing the public space: the creation of the street markets in Rio de Janeiro city

Abstract

Rio de Janeiro street market was created in 1904, as a European-based model with modern principles of beauty, discipline and hygiene. This model was gradually diffused and consolidated through the urban Brazilian system. This paper aims to analyse the context and the meaning of the creation of Rio de Janeiro street markets, examining the public space and the project of a new urban order. The main aspect of this research is the perspective of the modernity as ideological fundamental and the concrete reorganizing of the daily life, in the sense of a new order in the urban public space. The creation of Rio de Janeiro street markets represents an elitist strategy in the transition from the colonial city to the space of modernity.