FROM MUXARABI TO BRISE-SOLEIL: BRAZILIAN ARCHITECTURE ADJUSTING TO CLIMATE.

Abstract

Brazil’s territory displays a wide climatic diversification, which features array from hot and humid equatorial to tropical, either humid or dry, and even to humid subtropical. Most of it is, therefore, bathed by intense solar radiation, picturing how pressing to produce an architecture able to shelter from heatstroke and brightness excesses. Shading devices search, inflicted by such climatic onuses and fierce sun, looked forward to technical solutions from cultures in similar environments, as the Moresque ones, and therefore became a condition for good design. Islamic influence in Brazilian architecture left striking vestiges, and is a natural consequence within the historical process of the country growth. It was towed by the first Portuguese settlers, as wares culturally assimilated after centuries of Moorish occupation in the Iberian Peninsula and, also through dealers and navigators whose routes, back from east, often boarded the Brazilian coast during the whole colonial period (16th, 17th and 18th centuries) and part of 19th century when Europe became the major cultural mentor. This paper looks forward to contribute with an analysis of architectural solutions inherited from Islamic culture by Brazilians through Portuguese colonization. It shows how much these elements were and are still important for its own cultural identity, and how much they inspired most Brazilian modern architects. Such approach meant a quality leap to Brazilian architecture, with national and international acknowledgement. The paper also analyzes contemporary architecture mostly from 1970 decade with new buildings that eliminated shading devices, aiming to solve environmental issues by the use of glasses that promised solar shading performances as well as they systematically introduced air conditioning systems. [Accepted for presentation at CSAAR – The Center for Study of Architecture in the Arab Region – 2007]