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Transforming territories and forging identities at the Independence Centennial
International Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro (1922)
REZENDE, Livia Lazzaro /PhD / Rio de Janeiro State University / Brazil
Independence Centennial International Exhibition / Republicanism
/ National identity / Modernity / Brazilian material and
visual culture
This paper examines Rio’s Independence Centennial International
Exhibition – a festival that forged and projected a supposedly
cohesive and coherent identity for Brazil. Part of this identity
was forged through the dramatic transformation of the territory
where the exhibition was erected. The paper considers how Rio’s
press visually communicated this transformation, and discusses
the exhibition’s ‘nation-building’ pavilions, designed to offer a
view of the nation conflated to that of the sate.
1. Anxiety for renewal
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was unimpressed
by the cities he saw in the American continent during his first
visit in 1935 (Lévi-Strauss 1961). For him, while European cities
were more highly regarded the older they were, in America
the passage of time was ‘an element of disgrace’ (Lévi-Strauss
1961: 100-101). American cities, he wrote, ‘are not merely newly
built; they are built for renewal, and the sooner the better’ (Lévi-
Strauss 1961: 100-101). Lévi-Strauss condemned American
architecture and urbanism by concluding: ‘Their preoccupation
with effect and their desire to catch the eye reminds us more of
our fairgrounds and temporary international exhibitions’ (Lévi-
Strauss 1961: 100-101).
Lévi-Strauss’ remarks place us at the centre of my paper’s interests.
My paper investigates the Independence Centennial International
Exhibition, held in Rio de Janeiro – then capital of Brazil
– in 1922 to mark the nation’s hundred years of independence
from Portugal. It investigates also that ‘anxiety for renewal’ noted
by Lévi-Strauss – an anxiety likened to the rush for the modern
and modernisation prompted and promised by exhibitions of
that scale. Brazil’s Centennial Exhibition was a consequence of
and contributed to an anxiety for renewal that is fundamental
for the understanding of the Brazilian experience of modernity
during the 1920s.
My paper examines two moments of Rio’s Centennial Exhibition
– a festival that wished to forge and project a supposedly cohesive
and coherent identity for its host nation. Part of this identity
– one that promoted Brazil as a modern, industrial and sovereign
country – was forged through the dramatic transformation of the
very territory where the exhibition was erected. Thus, the first
part of my paper considers this transformation of territory and
how some of Rio’s press visually communicated this transforma-
tion as part of Rio’s and Brazil’s modernised identity. The second
part of my paper discusses the festival’s exhibitionary complex
(Bennett 1988) and what I call ‘nation-building’ pavilions. These
were pavilions specifically designed to instil civic sentiment into
local population and to offer a particular view of the nation according
to exhibition organisers.
2. A visual display of national growth
The Centennial Exhibition was a matter of the state. It was entirely
conceived and organised by politicians in the local and
federal governments. Their reasons for organising a costly exhibition
during the troubled inter-war period were threefold. First, the
symbolic association between celebrating Brazilian sovereignty
and being a politician helped substantiate their right to govern.
Second, the Brazilian republic wished to show to the world that
its pre-war international position as raw materials exporter remained
strong. And finally, these politicians turned exhibition
commissioners wished to promote their vision of an industrial
and modernised nation to a domestic audience that was increasingly
participating in national politics as voters.
In 1920s Brazil, political power was closely linked to coffee production.
Between 1925 and 1929, coffee alone provided 75 per cent of
Brazil’s foreign earnings (Dean 1993: 227). The concentration of
power and money in the hands of a few plantation owners caused
an uneven process of modernisation within the country. São Paulo
city and state experienced urban and economic growth driven by
industrialisation and coffee plantation revenue. In contrast, in the
Brazilian north and north-eastern regions ‘pre-capitalistic relationships
predominated’ (Fausto 1993: 267). Rio and São Paulo were
Brazil’s largest cities where wealth and skilled workers concentrated.
But even under frank urban expansion, during the 1920s
Brazil was a rural country and 75 per cent of its population were
illiterate (Fausto 1993: 278).
The organisation of an exhibition in Rio in 1922 was part of a programme
of public opinion formation, set in a context of a political
regime that wished to promote itself as the future of Brazil. Only
thirty-three years earlier, Brazil had been the last monarchy in
the Americas and the last American nation to have republicanism
imposed as a political solution to national problems. Thus,
during its Centennial Exhibition, Brazil projected the image of an
assumed stable and modernised nation that would return any
international investment. To a largely illiterate domestic audience,
republican politicians mounted a predominantly visual
display of how Brazil had grown under their rule, and of how it
would continue to grow.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies / Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Committee for
Design History & Design Studies - ICDHS 2012 / São Paulo, Brazil / © 2012 Blucher / ISBN 978-85-212-0692-7